


There Goes The Atmosphere

by missmollyetc



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Mind Control, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Post-Order 66, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Praise Kink
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-22
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-03-25 05:59:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 68,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3799492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmollyetc/pseuds/missmollyetc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The most dangerous space in the galaxy is the distance between a clone and his general.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This would not be happening if I didn't have wonderful and only occasionally terrifying friends like [thefourthvine](http://archiveofourown.org/users/thefourthvine?language_id=en). Thank you, bb! I swear to god, this one has a happy ending.

After securing their position, adequately searching the maze of caves in Pau City—even with the droids—was a no-go almost from the beginning. The local population had spent centuries carving their hills into a honeycomb of storage and living spaces, and what they hadn’t connected the Techno Union had blasted through. With their new orders in place, the 212th didn’t have time to do a job up to Cody’s own standard, much less Obi-Wan’s. If he wanted [to kill] his [Traitor] and still be able to look him in the eyes afterward, then it was time to fall back to their standing orders.

Cody raised his left arm and pressed the All-Send button with his thumb, gripping his wrist harder to keep his hand steady. Kriffing adrenaline. “All squads, fall back! Return to the _Vigilance_ for resupply. Medics, ready the wounded for pickup.” He switched frequencies to the Command line. “Nero, prep the ship for hyperspace. We’re regrouping at the rendezvous point, execute 212.3.”

“Solid copy, Commander,” Bridge Ops replied. “This is Sergeant Moti; we’ll have her ready.”

Cody lifted his chin, wincing as it jostled his helmet against the top of his head; felt like he’d picked up a bruise. “Moti?” he asked. “What happened to Nero? Is the ship damaged?”

If Obi-Wan had lost another flagship, [Traitor] Skywalker would never let anyone hear the end of it. Cody’s throat ached. He swallowed, but it didn’t help.

“Negative, sir,” Moti said. “Just the usual scrapes, but we think Nero must’ve taken an unlucky hit during a broadside maneuver. He was bleeding out of his ears by the time they took him down to Medical. Think he’ll be okay, though. Kept muttering ‘no.’”

Cody snorted. “He does hate anyone else at the helm. All right, see you back at the ship.”

He set his comm back to sleep, and squinted at the caves above his head. It seemed wrong for the sun to be so cheerfully bright on a battlefield, but that was the universe for you. Always had to go its own way. His helmet optics focused in on the cliff face automatically. After a month long siege in an ion storm, they had worked out a set of codes if their units were ever separated in the field without comms. There’d been nothing over the 212th’s systems since he’d ordered his [Traitor] shot down, but Obi-Wan was stubborn; he’d get a message through for Cody [to kill] him.

He scanned the walls twice, left and right and then backwards, balancing with the butt of his rifle stuck into the ground after he’d started to waver on his feet. There was nothing, no uniform scratches or marks burnt in with a well-aimed lightsaber, just blaster burns and pockmarks where explosions had dug holes out of the rock. He traced the scrabbling line of claw marks Obi-Wan’s varactyl had left in the cliff face. The pool they’d been dredging for an hour was empty now that they’d pulled its carcass from the water. Thank the Force, but he must have fallen clear. He’d be harder [to kill] on foot, but he’d clearly survived the fall. 

Cody leaned a little harder on his rifle, and kicked a piece of debris out of his path as he turned back to the men. He raised his free arm, circling it once over his head and dropping it back down to his side. Wooley lifted his blaster in recognition. Cody put his hand to his helmet. That bitter acid taste from before was back, coating his tongue. He swallowed heavily, grimacing. 

The rest of the battalion hadn’t started moving towards the landing transports, most of them weren’t even in formation. He grunted, shaking his aching head. The space behind his ears throbbed. Tension headaches, sometimes he and Obi-Wan caught them off each other.

“Barlex,” he yelled, glad no one could see him wincing through his helmet, and marched forward towards the nearest LAAT. “Get Parjai squad underway! If we’re late, I’m taking the time difference out of your hide!”

He stepped up into the ship as the rest of the men snapped to, and grabbed the nearest safety strap, staring out at Pau City as they lifted off before the blast shields closed.

 

***

 

The hanger bay was half-empty when they disembarked. The starfighters Dispatch had scrambled in case the [Traitor] got off-world were still out. Cody stepped down from his own ship after Wooley and his squadmates had staggered out, and took off his helmet, holding it under his arm. The air aboard the _Vigilance_ smelled like torched equipment. He glanced over the area, and moved into the path of one of the flight crew clones.

“How’d this happen?” he asked, gesturing with his chin. His eyes went a bit hazy, light sensitivity was setting in. The hatch just off the main hangar doors looked like it’d been sealed with half the fire retardant in their ship’s stores, and it was surrounded by the bodies of their brothers. “We take a hit?”

The flight mechanic paused, hand half raised in a salute. He stared and Cody frowned. His gut rumbled, sore up and down both sides from his ribs to his hips. He must’ve taken a blow during the assault, and hadn’t noticed.

“Well?” he asked, lowering his voice. The flight mechanic backed up a step; he didn’t look too good himself. Cody cleared his throat and sniffed loudly. Kriffing recycled air.

“It, uh, after our orders changed, sir,” the flight mechanic said, eyes shifting up and over Cody’s shoulder. The sides of his mouth crumpled, like he was expecting someone he wasn’t seeing. Cody made a note never to do that with his own face; it looked horrible on them. “Sergeant Crys and about half of Ghost Company…they went crazy, blasted their way out. Stole a whole line of my ships to do it, too. We just now managed to get access to the hangar.”

“What? No,” Cody said. 

He stepped to one side, looking again at the sealed door. His men would never mutiny. The bodies had been shoved against the walls, laid out end to end, and most of the shots seemed to have been…head shots? What the stang had been going on up here? His brothers would have never let the enemy that close in a fight. Cody’s hands started to shake; he clenched them into fists.

“Where’s the [Traitor]?” he demanded. “Has he checked in yet?”

The flight mechanic paused. “Say again, sir?” he asked.

Cody coughed, turning his head into his shoulder. His throat felt clogged, the filters on his armor must’ve failed in all that stirred up dust on Utapau. “Never mind,” he said in a rasp as he straightened. “As you were.”

He brushed past the man and set his helmet back on his head, before bringing his comm back on line. The world flattened into his viewscreen. “Moti, this is Cody. Are the coordinates for the rendezvous locked in?”

“Yes, sir,” Moti responded. “Pilot Jezz is just waiting for your go ahead.”

He switched frequencies. “Crys—” he paused, pressing his lips together, and breathed in deeply through his nose. Heat flushed along his neck and down his back; his head was really starting to pound. “Who’s out there? Squadron leaders report in.”

“Barlex here. Parjai responds.”

“Skitter here. Nerio responds.”

“Trip-Sevens here, uh, I guess for—I mean, Adenn responds.”

Cody heard out the rest of the count, watching the Medbay details finally come to stretcher the wounded and the dead out of the hangar, and waited for voices he knew should be there: Crys, Caredig, Fall Back, Odd Ball, Quaker… They never came. The 212th was down by at least a third if the flight mechanic was to be believed, and they still had a kriffing planet to retake. There must have been a mistake, his brothers wouldn’t desert in the middle of battle, not like this. Where would they go?

He closed his eyes against his headache. The [Traitor] was going to have to have at least two full blown Force migraines if he wanted to catch up to this one on the leaderboard. The pain and the pressure just kept growing, shifting like a black cloak at the edges of his sight. 

“All right,” he broke in on the comm chatter. “Paredes Company, get back in your Larties; you’re marching on Utan. The Screamers can run triple-A support while you close in on that Seppie factory. Parjai and Nerio, set up a perimeter around Pau City and hold the line; there shouldn’t be any more trouble, but you know how much the clankers like to show up uninvited. The rest of the battalion will fall back to the rendezvous for reinforcements.”

A jumble of ‘sir, yes, sirs’ came over the line, and Cody cut them off. The stir of armored troops picked up around him as the battalion dropped off the last of their wounded and resupplied. Cody walked through the hangar as quickly and as smoothly as he could, feeling the pitch and yaw of a kriffing sick headache taking over his balance. There were more signs of battle in the hallway, drag marks where bodies had been pulled out of firing range. Fighting on board ship was miserable work. What had happened to Crys and the others to make them go this far? 

He made it into the elevator without a ping on the comm or a hand raised to stop him and smacked his closed fist against the floor buttons. He tore off his helmet and slumped against the wall of the elevator. He ached all over now, right through his muscles to the bone, but Medical was probably overrun with their latest patients. Cody swiped at the side of his head, trying to find the spots Obi-wan would press during the worst of Cody’s headaches. Usually hurt like a numa-humper, but stang, if it didn’t help, with Obi-Wan’s long cool fingers scratching through the stiff bristles of his shorn hair. This time, though, he couldn’t seem to make his fingers fall into the correct position. No wonder Obi-Wan always insisted that Cody put his head into his lap for that move. He sighed. Time for the industrial strength pain tabs.

He raised his comm again. “Bridge, you are cleared for hyperspace as soon as Dispatch gives the all clear,” he said. Best not to keep Obi-wan waiting. Cody flinched suddenly, and closed his right eye as a lightning bolt of pain shot across his forehead. “I’ll meet you up there soon,” he grunted and clicked off.

He pushed off the wall of the elevator as it slowed down, and opened to the first level of the crew floors. Ahead of him, a squad of shinies was crowded around the [Traitor’s] door, while a birth-born private stood over them in grey.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Cody yelled, rushing out of the elevator and striding down the corridor.

The crowd jumped to attention, a cold electro-torch and a couple of code runners clattered to the floor at their feet. Cody stuffed his helmet underneath his arm and held on to it tightly. He marched forward, kicking the torch out of his way. 

“Oh kark me,” one of them muttered.

Cody frowned, and cracked his neck to one side. “What the kriffing hell is this?” he asked, left hand drifting towards his sidearm.

The private swallowed. He was human, grey-eyed, and sallow-faced like most spacers; the collar of his uniform was dark with sweat.

“Commander,” he saluted, “we were attempting to search [Traitor] Kenobi’s quarters for evidence to turn over to the admiralty once we reconvene on Coruscant, but none of us can override his code and the lock’s not responding to any of our attempts to reboot the system.”

His vision flattened into the red of his helmet cam and then crackled with brilliant white eddies of light. Cody grit his teeth and glared past the pain shooting up from his joints until he could see past the light show to the white-faced asshole in front of him.

“I don’t care what the stang you thought you were doing,” he said. “No one breaks into the [Traitor’s] room on his own flagship!”

“But sir, I don’t understand, our new orders clearly state—”

“The day I need you to remind me of my orders, Private, is the day they ship me back to Kamino in a decorative box,” Cody snapped out, and the private closed his mouth.

He stood to attention, thin lips in an even thinner line, and the rest of his squad of thieves and idiots huddled behind him. Force, to think he was left with this bunch to make up for the loss of his brothers. Crys would kill him for even trying to make a comparison.

“Get out of my sight before I have you all thrown in the brig. If you’re lucky, I’ll be feeling more friendly after we rendezvous and this serious lapse in discipline won’t go into my report to the [Traitor].”

The private startled and looked at him, crinkling his forehead beneath his idiotic half cap. Cody waited him out, but the silence dragged on, and his headache was spreading deeper, tensing all his muscles down his spine. He wanted a shower, a pain tab, and a bed in whatever order he could get them. He was starting to smell himself, and he had a feeling the comedown from this fight was going to be bad.

He waited, letting his headache turn his glower mean until the pack of Jawas had locked stepped it back down the corridor towards the exit. The private was the last to go, sweat glistening on his high forehead as he saluted. Cody returned it as curtly as possible, and the private allowed the elevator at the other end of the hallway to close. 

If this was the level of discipline he could expect now that Crys and the others had mutinied, they were all in trouble. It just made no sense. Cody took a deep breath and blew it out through his mouth. Crys was loyal, same as the rest of the men he’d apparently taken with him. The [Traitor] was going to have a very [Traitor]-like fit when he found out, which meant at least half a week of Obi-wan talking like a Coruscanti debutante at his first orgy, and Cody getting to rub knots the size of mynocks out of his back at night while they tracked everyone down. He adjusted his grip on his helmet, and then kicked the torch a little farther away from the door. All right, it wouldn’t be all bad. 

He glanced up at the camera panopticon in the ceiling, sniffed, and keyed in the lock code, making sure to block the view with his elbow. Maybe four or five people in the entire galaxy had an access pass for Obi-Wan’s door, and that wasn’t going to change even when everything else went to stang. The door opened with a creaking hiss; the idiots must’ve pinged the actual processing matrix. They’d been lucky they hadn’t triggered a boarding alarm and sparked an emergency shut down protocol for the entire section. Karking amateurs. Cody rolled his eyes and rubbed his temple with his free hand. He stepped inside and the door shut behind him. 

Cody sighed. He smelled the remains of cold caff in the dispenser. He stretched a little; his entire back ached, trading off beats of pain with his head. Maybe it was the extra space, but Obi-Wan’s room always felt better than his; he could breathe bit more freely, even if the air was above his paygrade. He frowned. The room was clear, of course, it was supposed to be, but it felt off for once. It felt empty.

They didn’t get much time to spend the night together, [Traitors] weren’t supposed to get attached to anything anymore than clones were, but Cody still knew Obi-Wan’s berth better than he knew his own. It doubled as his [Traitor’s] unofficial office and maintenance shed, and they’d planned more assaults here than in the ward room off the bridge. He hung his helmet on the hook next to the doorway, and keyed in the lock, sealing out the rest of the ship.

He walked over to the wardrobe, unbuckling the latches on his right gauntlet, and opened the right-side door. His stomach twisted, throat briefly closing. He coughed, gagging on something sharply bitter deep in his mouth. Obi-Wan’s spare tunic and robe were in there, just as they should be, next to the bare inset shelves. As a [Traitor], Obi-Wan rated space that looked more like a hotel room than an officer’s quarters on his own flagship. He had a real bed—bolted to the flooring, but not a bunk—as well as a private fresher, a desk, and even a kitchenette, which gathered dust unless Cody cooked something in it. Cody unbuckled his other gauntlet, tugging a little too fast on the glove attachments and catching his fingers in the durasteel joints. Kark. He freed himself and put them down on the shelves. His fingertips were shaking; he rubbed them against each other, trying to warm up a bit. He glanced at the kitchenette. His [Traitor] liked to think they could all just live on caff and ration sticks, but Cody had had enough real food on leave to know the difference a good meal made. Besides, it was…nice, sometimes, to do something harmless, just because he wanted to do it.

He sniffed again, and wiped his thumb underneath his nose, wrinkling it at the sudden smell of blood. Scratched by a loose filament in the helmet, maybe? The assault had been rough; the Seppies had too much of the high ground not to be a karking pain in the ass, and then when Obi-Wan’s mount had been shot—

Pain exploded across his face and roared out from his chest. He heard himself groan as he twisted in its grasp, pressing his right hand to his forehead and tearing at his cuirass with his left. It was like lightning in his blood, a shivering stinging chain dragging along his nerve endings. Cody staggered to one side and fell to their bed, bouncing on the thin mattress. A stifled giggle escaped him, even as he pushed his face down into the tangle of blanket and sheets. Obi-Wan hated it when he sat down on the bed in armor; he was going to be in such trouble.

No, he wouldn’t. Red lights strobed across Cody’s closed eyelids. He grimaced. No, he would, they were a kriffing pair of brats about the things they owned, probably because [Traitors] weren’t supposed to have things and clones weren’t supposed to last long enough to acquire them—and—and— His face felt overstuffed, hot with pain. He heard his own neck crack when he twisted his head to one side, coming into contact with Obi-Wan’s pillow. He dug his hands into the blanket, and breathed in and then out. He centered, trying to find that whatever-the-stang-it-was Obi-Wan was always talking about, the light in Cody’s center. Slowly the pain retreated, pulling back enough for him to unclench his hands and sit up.

“Room, half lights.” 

He opened his eyes slowly. The empty room was lit to about Coruscanti dusk, which wasn’t actually dark, but fairly standard for any place set to Obi-Wan’s preferences. His sight wavered, that black film fluttering on the edges of his sight again, and Cody waited until it settled around him. He looked over, and tried to grin, but his mouth felt too stiff. On the desk, Obi-Wan had left his lightsaber kit open _and_ Cody’s spare blaster tools spread out on a towel over the top of all his random flimsi reports and datawork tablets; he’d probably filched the forceps again the night before. No matter how much of light sleeper he was, Cody never seemed to wake up before Obi-Wan. He was always coming to and finding Obi-Wan tinkering with the blasted lightsaber. If it wasn’t trying to nudge an hour’s worth of life from the battery packs, then he was taking the whole thing apart with the Force and making horrible ‘crystal polishing’ jokes as if innuendo would give the thing more power. One day, he was going to singe his eyebrows off, and then Cody was going to win twenty Cho-Mar off of Rex. Cody chuckled through a throat full of rocks and smelled blood again. He sniffed, and felt something drip from his nose. He wiped at it, and looked at the back of his hand. A thin line of blood trailed over his knuckles.

He leaned his head forward, cupping his hand around his nose, but nothing came out. Cody dragged the heels of his palms down his forehead, and pressed in over his eyebrows. His eyes felt grainy, like he’d been standing in a dust storm, definitely something wrong with his armor’s filtration. He dropped his hands to his knees, and stood up with a groan, digging his weight into his heels for balance.

This was a battle hangover like none he’d ever had before, and it was kicking his kriffing ass. Forget winning the ‘Worst Headache of the War’ award, he’d settle for Obi-Wan… He frowned, and then swallowed. He’d settle for Obi-Wan… Kark it, he needed those tabs. He was used to having to push past an injury in the course of a fight, especially if the [Traitor] needed him, but something felt off. He would have remembered taking a hit that left him feeling this smashed.

He walked into the fresher with his eyes closed just as the automatic lighting kicked in, and put his hand out, catching the side of the medicine cabinet. He thumbed the side lock, and squinted as the mirrored surface rolled up into the top. Force bless [Traitors] who hated going to the medics as much as he did. Obi-Wan had a stash of bandages, bacta, and painkillers that would have made Rivet, their only [Traitor]-certified medic, turn to petty theft. He grabbed the cylinder of Pexereca, unscrewed the cap, and shook two tabs into his left hand. He popped them both in his mouth and swallowed, shuddering as they went down. That was never fun.

Cody capped the cylinder and set it back on the shelf in the medicine cabinet. He glanced over at the sonic shower and then down at his scorched armor. The chronometer in the wall had it at little over thirty since the first assault group had pulled back, and Dispatch hadn’t comm’d in that their fighter patrols had encountered Obi-Wan trying to make it off world. He’d clean up when they’d pulled in, and after the flagship hyped to the rendezvous point. He hit the button on the medicine cabinet, and glanced away, rubbing his tongue over his teeth as the front rolled down. Maybe he’d use Obi-Wan’s brush, serve him right for leaving.

He looked back up, and rocked back on his heels. “ _Kriffing_ hell.” 

His eyes were bleeding, little branching red trails all around his sclera, heavy enough to be a solid pond in his right eye. He leaned in closer to the mirror. The curves of his scar stood out in a dark corkscrew down the left side of his face. His brown skin had faded to grey where it wasn’t mottled with broken capillaries, and his jaw shook with tension—how long had he been grinding it? He couldn’t remember. The short black bristles of his hair were matted to his head. There were filthy tracks under his eyes, and down his cheeks, dried now. His nose was crusted with blood as well. No wonder he felt like six tons of bantha fodder in a three pound bag, he looked like a scavenger’s breakfast. 

Cody backed out of the fresher, feeling his stomach barrel roll as he moved. Maybe he should have gone to the medics after all; a full body scan sounded like a good idea. He—if—he would have remembered a clanker getting off a round that did this much damage, and since he didn’t remember taking a blow at all during the assault then the explanation had to be something biological. He wasn’t old—old for a clone maybe, but that just meant he was that kriffing good—and the bone-deep throbbing ache in his body, the way his throat felt like he’d been screaming it hoarse, and Force, his _eyes_ …this wasn’t normal.

He turned to the desk. It could be a biological weapon; the Seppies mostly just fielded droids and they’d faced bio-terrorists before. He picked his forceps out of Obi-Wan’s tool kit and then closed the lid. He rolled his tools up in the towel, and spread his hand out over the messy pile of flimsi’s. That could have been why Crys and the others ran, if his [Traitor] had ordered them to follow a plague carrier into hyperspace. He squinted. The half-lights weren’t doing stang for his eyesight, but the tabs hadn’t kicked in yet. His head was starting to throw up a lightshow in front of his face. He flicked through the pile, nudging aside the lightsaber schematics and armory inventories to get at the next layer of messages. If Ghost Company had been detailed outside the area of operation on the [Traitor’s] orders, it meant that they’d most likely be at the rendezvous as well. That had to be it, it made sense. Obi-Wan never liked to split the battalion over more than one battle unless he could possibly help it. And now that he was [wanted for treason against the Republic] to be [killed on sight] by [order of the Supreme Chancellor] then—

A flimsi crumpled underneath his hand. A drop of blood fell on his thumb. He sniffed and came to attention.

No. That wasn’t… He hadn’t thought that. Obi-Wan was a [traitor,] he was _Cody’s_ [trai—]enral not a kriffing pile of stang like Krell or a mir'osik political waster. He was a [Traitor] for the love of the Force, and Skywalker be damned, they didn’t come more loyal. Obi-Wan Kenobi _would never_.

He ground his teeth, and leaned against the desk. Something was wrong. Obi-Wan Kenobi was a [traitor.] Obi-Wan Kenobi was a [Traitor]. He stayed up too late and got up too early. He used his [filthy tricks] to—to take his clothes out of the closet when he felt lazy. He was a Force-loving smug bastard with a clever mouth and hands that would’ve been better off given to a pirate. Cody frowned, closing his eyes when the room started to get too bright again. His nose twitched, something warm slid down to his lip. He shuddered, flinching, and centered himself. Obi-Wan Kenobi was his G[rait]en[or]al who had bled with him and mourned with him on worlds Cody couldn’t—he couldn’t remember them all. He was a Mas[aitor] of the Coruscant Temple, to be [killed on sight]— _No_.

His knees buckled, armor creaking as he caught himself one-handed on the desk. He slid into the matching chair, and pressed his entire left palm against his head. His forehead pounded, the skin beneath his short hair was hot enough to prickle his fingertips. He grabbed the towel with his right hand, dimly registering the clatter of his blaster tools falling out of the roll, and pressed it to this nose, tilting his head forward.

The [Order 66] had been given, and he’d obeyed, because that was what a good soldier did. Even the [trai—] the [trait—] even _Obi-Wan_ followed rules from that damn [evil conspiracy]…of his. Cody smacked the desk with his left fist, and then brought it back up to his head again, digging his knuckles in behind his ear. Kriffing son of a Hutt’s _ass_.

He breathed in and then out again a few times, fighting the crap floating at the back of his throat, and tried to picture himself ordering the AT-TE cannon to fire on Obi-Wan. He had, he could remember that. He could see Obi-Wan and his varactyl fall into the water, the debris surrounding them, but there was no sound. He’d been standing next to a weapon large enough to blow a building six klicks high in the middle of a full-on ground assault and he couldn’t hear a thing.

He remembered thinking it would make killing Obi-Wan harder if he still had his lightsaber.

Cody choked, shoulders drawing in and up to his ears. He pressed the towel hard against his closed lips and breathed and breathed and breathed until he could swallow the bile in his mouth back down. Obi-Wan Kenobi was a [dangerous fugitive] and this was a mistake. It had to be some…kriffing default in his DNA. Maybe clones really weren’t meant to be his age; maybe that was why he hadn’t heard from Rex in months and Nero was muttering to himself in the Medbay and Crys blew his way off their ship. They were all breaking down at last.

Obi-Wan had to have known, then, once Cody had—and maybe Obi-Wan had known even beforehand. He’d come back from the last meeting with his damn [conspiracy] in a bad mood he’d tried to cover up by teaching some of the bridge shinies Nal Hutta-rules Sabaac and, later that night, he’d climbed into Cody’s lap in the middle of a debrief and kissed him stupid. There had to be a plan in place, and Cody just had to get in line.

He opened his eyes cautiously, first left and then right. The blank screen along the wall was blinking in the left-hand corner. Cody pressed the audio only button, and took the towel away from his face.

“Yes?”

The comm chimed and the screen turned blue with a bouncing green line through the middle. Cody closed his eyes again. 

“It’s Sergeant Moti, Commander. Dispatch has pulled the flyers back home. They caught sight of General Grevious’ ship leaving atmosphere, but too late to catch it before it hyped out of theater. Paredes is reporting minimal casualties and little resistance. Looks like the Seppies pulled out of Utan as soon as Pau City went dark. Is order 212.3 still green, sir?”

Cody swallowed, working his jaw until it popped. “We’re a go, Sergeant,” he said. “Execute the jump to hyperspace.”

“Sir, yes, sir.”

The comm went dead, and Cody leaned his head on both hands. He rubbed the towel across the bottom of his nose. Crys would make sure they could contain whatever was affecting the 212th, whether it was a virus or a drug or even just Cody’s number come up at last. All he had to do was get the _Vigilance_ to Obi-Wan and join back up with Ghost Company. 

It would be so good to see him again.


	2. Chapter 2

He only let himself think of it for a moment, but standing on the bridge, staring into the empty space outside the front viewports, felt a little like a dream he’d had before. He had the same shudders up and down his spine, and the creeping sense of unease. Cody walked a few steps apart from the bridge crew and folded his gauntleted hands behind back. He stepped to the side, automatically turning to his left, and corrected himself. There was no one to make room for. He breathed in carefully, measuring his inhalations, and made sure he kept his face as calm as could be expected.

No one was here. Cody closed his eyes, and saw the AT-TE fire. 

“Are you sure you’ve got the coordinates correct?” he asked, opening his eyes and glancing over his shoulder.

His stomach gurgled; he winced. He’d dosed himself up with enough of Obi-Wan’s stash that he could walk and see without pain, but he didn’t think Pexereca and Basscogh were supposed to be mixed. Worth it, though. A shower and clean armor only went so far to show the troops there was someone still in charge since—if Cody was on his own. 

“Yes, sir,” Moti said. He stepped up the short staircase leading from the tech pit to the command deck. “We checked it twice.”

Moti shuffled his feet across the metal deck; he’d developed quite a few tics since Cody had last seen him, in the wardroom before the [Trait—] before the 212th had landed on Utapau. Seemed like none of the bridge clones could keep still. Cody looked over just far enough to see Moti’s hands tighten into fists in front of his stomach, clenching and releasing over and over.

“Right,” Cody grunted.

He turned back to the viewport and listened to the hum from the tech pits surrounding the command deck. Usually, he found it soothing; a Star Destroyer was too advanced not to have sound baffles to block out machine noise, but it also muffled all the other sounds of life onboard. Cody preferred the areas where everyone tended to congregate, the mess or the rec level, where he could hear people. Today, there were too many missteps, cut-off curses as a navigator dropped a stylus or a stutter that hadn’t been there yesterday. 

Something had gone very wrong. They’d followed the [Traitor’s] plan, brought down Grievous _himself_ , and taken the planet while coping with the chaos of [legally executing a trai—] of _removing_ their [betrayer]…oh kriffing hell. Why couldn’t he think? It was like every time he tried to make sense, he thought something else that still made perfect sense, but…hurt.

He fought back a shudder. That soldier Rex had talked about, the one from Rishi, he’d been babbling like that before he’d been brought down, hadn’t he? He’d been crazy. Cody swallowed heavily and squeezed the bridge of his nose with two fingers.

“Are you all right, sir?” Moti asked. “Your eyes are…”

Cody dropped his hand to his side and straightened up. “Try having an AT-TE go off next to your head, Sergeant,” he said quickly. He cleared his throat. “Not even Katarn armor’s gonna block out that blast.”

Moti made a sound halfway between a chuckle and a hiccup. “No, thank you, sir. I’ll leave that to the infantry.”

Cody tucked his chin onto his gorget. “Well, someone has to stay up here and do the math.”

Moti chuckle-hiccupped again, but out of the side of Cody’s eye, he could still see him clenching and unclenching his fists. Moti stepped up on Cody’s right side, and Cody swung around to face him. There were sweat stains around his high grey uniform collar and dried salt tracks around his hairline. 

“Has there been any word from our forces on the planet?” Cody asked. He refolded his hands behind his back. There was still work to do, still brothers down in the fighting on Utapau; he had to keep it together until he could be relieved. “Anything from Command?”

Moti shook his head. “Squads are reporting even less resistance as they push into Utan’s suburbs, Commander. Nerio squad found a warehouse full of unpowered droidekas and a half-hearted attempt at sabotaging the generators in the water treatment plant, but the most action happened on the walls prior to our breaking the blockade. It’s the damnedest thing, sir. Two or three ships left the surface at most, after that first one got away, and none of them made it past our gunners.”

“What about the detachment from the 501st? Are they still sifting through Hangar 10?” 

“One of their medics converted it into a triage unit, sir. We loaded up most of them before hyping to the rendezvous.”

Moti’s hands clenched and then tightened so hard his knuckles whitened. “Sir,” he said quietly, leaning in towards Cody. “All communication with Command cut out as soon as—as soon as our new orders were transmitted, but thirty minutes ago we began receiving reports from other battalions. I’ve routed them through to the wardroom’s terminal.”

Cody frowned and glanced out the viewport. “Why?”

Moti swallowed. “I didn’t want to transmit them through the main comm hub, Commander. I think you should see them before scuttlebutt gets around.”

Cody raised his eyebrows and leaned back. “All right,” he said.

He turned on his right heel and started back down the walkway, Moti at his elbow. He saw some of the crew glance up as he passed, but never for long. A nervous chill lingered in the air and talk noticeably picked up the further down the deck Cody walked.

“The squads reporting in want to know if they should maintain their positions or push further into the planet’s remaining cities,” Moti said, catching a datapad one of tech clones tossed up at him. He angled the front of it towards Cody as they walked. “Parjai squad has gathered the native leaders in Hangar 10 and joined up with the rest of the detachment from the 501st.”

“I thought you said they came aboard before we hyped here,” Cody said as he took the datapad. He picked up his helmet from the tactical hub with his other hand and put it on. He flicked through the in-field statements, and nodded to himself. Barlex was being a highly effective bastard, as usual. 

“Just their wounded and their medical personnel,” Moti said. “They’re working with Rivet and, uh, Sir?”

Cody stopped just outside the door to the wardroom. “Yes?”

“It’s Lieutenant Nero, sir. He died.”

Cody dropped the datapad to his side. His jaw began to ache again. “What? When?”

Moti swallowed hard, caught his breath, and clamped his lip between his teeth briefly. “Just a little before we came out of hyperspace, sir,” he said, ducking his head and leaning in. “I wanted to make sure you had the full report before I told you. When the wounded were sent to the Medbay, the EmmDees were tied up almost immediately, and since, uh, [Traitor] Tan-Oshi was [executed], you see, and ship security airlocked her [traitor]—” 

“Athonjo,” Cody said. The name turned to ice on his tongue.

Moti nodded jerkily. He raised his hands up partway, a little helplessly. “There weren’t enough medics to go around, and he just—Nero couldn’t hold on, sir.”

Cody’s head throbbed. He fought back the urge to cover his face and pressed his tongue hard to the roof of his mouth. Tan-Oshi was dead? She was their only [Traitor] Healer, and her [traitor] had been—had been barely into hir coming of age. They couldn’t have just [lawfully executed] their Healer in the middle of a major battle. Especially one with the added chaos of [lawfully exec—] of attack—[killin—] of removing their own [Traitor.] Moti coughed. Cody stood straighter and shook off the haze in front of his brain. Moti stared. Some quirk in the cloning tanks had left him with wider eyes than most of them had—part of being force grown for so long, Cody had always supposed; they all had stretch marks or outsized bits somewhere. Cody could see the beginnings of red in Moti’s sclera.

“I’m sorry, Sergeant,” Cody said. He shifted the datapad to his right hand, put his left on Moti’s shoulder, and squeezed. “The lieutenant was a good man, and a great pilot.”

Obi-Wan would be upset, if—when he found out about it. Nero had been one of the clones who’d taken him up on meditation lessons during the downtimes between star systems. He’d claimed the focus improved his navigation. He’d even tattooed the [Traitors’] winged symbol on his right hand in gratitude.

“We were batch-mates,” Moti said. His shoulders were twitching up and down; Cody could feel his muscles spasm even through the gauntlet. “It was an honor.”

Cody dropped his hand from Moti’s shoulder and let it fall to his side. “I understand, Sergeant,” he said. “I’ll need you to stay in charge until our reinforcements arrive.”

Moti nodded. “I won’t let you down, sir,” he said.

Cody nodded back and turned around. He raised his hand and punched in the first number of the entry code.

“Sir?” Moti said behind him, and chuckle-hiccuped.

Cody looked back at him. “Yes?”

“Sir, I wanted to ask you about…” he trailed off, licked his lips, and shook his head once. “Before the fight, some of the soldiers from the 501st were talking in the mess about one of their brothers who died back on Triple Zero. They said he went AWOL because the Kaminoans had done something to us before we were deployed to the front. That they put—”

“Never pay attention to rumor, Sergeant,” Cody broke in, slashing the air in between them with his free hand. “You want to live through this war, you keep your head down and your mind on your orders. That goes for every soldier and tech in this battalion.”

Moti snapped to attention. “Yes, sir,” he said.

Cody turned back to the keypad and punched the rest of the code. “Keep scanning for incoming ships,” he said as the door opened and he stepped past its threshold. “If anything changes, report to me immediately.”

The door closed on Moti’s reply. 

Cody took off his helmet and pressed his palm to his face. This entire operation was turning into a kriffing pile of stang faster than a Trandoshan’s cloaca. The wardroom’s fancy meeting comm table gleamed underneath the overhead lumas. Cody twisted the light dial on the wall down to a more comfortable gloom and tossed the datapad onto the comm table; it hit the raised silver metal holoprojector in the center. He dragged a chair over to the nearest access terminal and sat down, setting his helmet on his knee. Force take it, how was he going to tell Obi-Wan about Tan-Oshi and Athonjo, too?

Cody ran his thumb over the ID plate and rubbed his forehead with his right hand while the terminal cycled awake. He tapped the blinking report icon and rotated the indicator towards the new files outlined in blue. While it was thinking, he tapped the screen controls and lowered the brightness down by a third. His eyes were started to itch again.

The screen blinked and then the reports loaded. Troop movements, GAR-wide review changes, educational course offerings, maintenance notifications—nothing that merited any kind of discretion, unless Moti thought anyone in the 212th was going to riot over BlasTech’s new heat sink attachment for the Deece. He frowned and leaned forward on his left elbow, resting his chin on his fist. The battlefield reports came up, casualty lists first as always. 

Slowly, Cody sat back in his chair and dropped his hand from the touchscreen to the keypad. He scanned through report after report; every [Traitor] in the GAR had been targeted. Some places—some names—he recognized from other reports: Mygeeto, Cato Neimoidia, Kashyyyk, New Plympto. The casualty lists were in the thousands, even higher than usual, across battlefields, onboard flagships, and hospital space stations, an entire training squadron [executed] in Mid-Rim space. He didn’t think he’d ever seen so many [Traitors] reported dead without their commanders’ names listed immediately below. They were supposed to go together. He rubbed his forehead, fingertips tracing along the curve of his highest scar.

Kriffing Force, it was true. He wasn’t breaking down. He’d followed [Order 66] and it had been necessary, but what could they have been planning? He breathed in quickly through his mouth, and dropped his hand away from his face. The _scope_ of the carn—[conspiracy against the Republic] was insane. The [Traitors] had their problems—he’d heard Obi-Wan "releasing his anger into the Force" one too many times to believe otherwise—but they were[n’t] loyal. That bastard Krell had [only been the beginning]. Cody smacked his hand against the keyboard, and the screen flipped back two reports to Felucia before jumping ahead and freezing on the reports from the Core Worlds. The wait icon popped up.

Kark. He was going around in circles, and he couldn’t afford this kind of confusion; the 212th was still fighting a blasted _war_. Cody's jaw popped. He was going to grind his teeth to powder by the end of the day if he didn’t get a grip.

Obi-Wan wasn’t there and Cody was. There was work to be done. The wait icon disappeared and the report from Coruscant opened on-screen. If Obi-Wan was running from—from him, there was only one place he’d make his way to: wherever the 501st was stationed with [Traitor] Skywalker. The bulk of their force was on Coruscant. If you were looking for one [traitor], you only had to look as far away as the other. 

Cody raised his hand, touched the screen, and scrolled down the list with a shaking finger. The report from the 501st looked like the reports from everywhere else in the GAR, except it seemed endless, starting with the Council itself. Appo had razed the Temple.

A shivering calm settled into Cody’s bones. He scanned down the list, sorted in no order at all it seemed like, clone trooper and [Traitor] recorded where they were found. He didn’t recognize many of the names, but the weight of them bore down on him as page after page came up. His breath sat heavy in his lungs and he dragged it out and in by sheer force of habit. He’d had dreams like this. Obi-Wan would wake up muttering about fire and yellow eyes in the dark, but Cody always woke up convinced he was alone, cold and drowning in casualty lists. 

He shook his head stiffly. Those sorts of dreams came with command; the price for sending men into battle was the terror of being wrong. Just because that trooper—what was his name?—from the 501st had babbled about them didn’t mean anything. He couldn’t be wrong. The [Order 66] had come from the Chancellor himself, and everyone had obeyed. Cody felt his heartbeat stutter in his chest. Obi-Wan had to be a traitor, but he _couldn’t_ be. Their men had died for him in their hundreds, and Cody had seen him heal soldiers until he collapsed. And their own whatever it was, their situation…no, no, it didn’t make sense. His forehead hurt again, the light too bright. Cody focused.

As much as Obi-Wan had hated the war, he was loy—loyal to the Republic, and he was [a traitor] —a tactician, he wasn’t stupid. There had been something, an artifact Obi-Wan had been working with in his off-moments, something to show to the [conspiracy] about their numbers. The [Traitors] were—there were enough of them to pull off a coup, but not enough to stay in power. And Cody had seen the looks when they’d landed on Core Worlds or sometimes even Mid-Rim planets. [Traitors] were used, trusted, but they weren’t loved; parents held their children a little too closely when they passed. Officials sometimes visibly relaxed when the [Traitors] handed logistical coordination off to their commanders. They couldn’t overthrow the Republic by themselves, and the Separatists couldn’t keep a secret for longer than the time it took to make a holovid news announcement; an alliance with the [Traitors] would have been publicly exploited. Cody frowned. 

All of the [executions] had taken place more or less at the same time: 1400 CST, when Cody had received the Chancellor’s transmission. It’d come over his comm unit, rather than through normal channels. He kept scrolling, even though Obi-Wan’s name couldn’t be listed. No one could make the run from Utapau to Coruscant that fast, especially not in a shuttle. He was still alive, Cody was sure of it; almost like he could hear him if he concentrated. 

 

A light, familiar touch brushed against his mind, the same way Obi-Wan always announced himself before chiming the door. He could almost smell the fancy beard oil Obi-Wan pretended he didn’t stock up on, and feel the weight of his hands on Cody’s shoulders; the press of his lips against his neck. Cody stood up, hand sweeping across the computer screen, toppling his chair backwards with a crash. He barely heard his helmet fall to the floor as he drew his sidearm, sighted down the barrel, and swept the room, his breath hissing between his clenched teeth. He swept left and ducked around the side of the table, making sure [the traitor] wasn’t hiding. 

The room was empty. Cody was the only one there, but Obi-Wan was near and he [had to kill him]. The sense of Obi-Wan in his mind pressed in on him like hands gripping both sides of his head, and then the signal flickered. Cody swept back around the table, his right hand squeezing the butt of his blaster, his left hand shaking too hard to stabilize his aim. Obi-Wan had used the Force to alert him before, but never from so far away. Had he gone far away? [Where was he hiding?] The feel of Obi-Wan came back to him, a barely checked pulse of heat and sorrow that made Cody’s entire body break out in cold sweat, and then he was gone. Cody turned his head towards the direction the feeling had come from, eyes widening at the empty stretch of grey metal in front of him. _No_. 

He pointed the blaster around the wardroom, on autopilot for a final sweep, arms finally steady even if the rest of him felt like he’d been pummeled by a blasted gundark. Cody focused inward to slow his breath and began to count his exhalations. By fifty, he’d convinced himself to lower his weapon. At two hundred, he holstered his blaster, forced his hand away from it, and picked up the chair he’d overturned. 

He hadn’t even hesitated, just drew his blaster even though he’d known it was an empty room. He’d lost control. Obi-Wan had sensed it, and Cody hadn’t even recognized the feeling. Obi-Wan had felt sad; he shouldn’t be sad.

He fell back into chair and looked at the terminal. A red dot flashed next to his private comm code, circled in blue; he had a secure transmission coming through. On the screen, the Coruscant report had disappeared in favor of the 327th’s transmission from Felucia.

Bly and five other clones in his squad were MIA. [Traitor] Secura was unlisted.

Cody tugged the collar of his body glove away from his neck and rubbed his thumb against his skin. Secura was alive, maybe, just like Obi-Wan was, and now he had a comm light to deal with.

It had to be Obi-Wan. Cody had felt him just like before, and who else was foolish enough to try to contact Cody _now_? Cody glanced down at his hands lying in his lap. Well, it wouldn’t work. If he answered that, he’d probably wind up shooting the terminal and then the kriffing Quartermaster would skin him alive. A hissing chuckle escaped him as his hands met and twisted over themselves. At this point, did it really matter? The Quartermaster would be the most mundane part of this entire numa-humping day. He sighed. Oh, kark it.

Cody tapped the blinking light and watched as the holographic comm podium in the center of the table lit up. The projector brightened as the signal connected, and then the holo of a thin-faced birthborn tech wearing a headset beneath his cap appeared. Cody swallowed and pressed both fists to his cuirass under the table. Not Obi-Wan, then.

“ _Vigilance_. Come in, _Vigilance_. This is the GAR _Imperator_ , do you copy?” the tech—a sergeant, it looked like—asked.

“This is the _Vigilance_ ,” Cody said.

“Hold for secure communication,” the sergeant said.

Cody saw the hologram type into something off-screen, and then the sergeant disappeared in a swirl of pixels. The hologram reformed, this time into a broad-shouldered older humanoid male, a blasted birthborn _again_ , with a bony face and a short nose. His uniform said military more than his posture did.

He straightened in his chair anyway. The pips on his chest told Cody he was looking at a general.

Cody paused. That had sounded odd in his head.

The man—he was betting on human, but sometimes you couldn't tell—looked over at him and raised both bushy eyebrows. His round chin stuck out a little. “Hmm,” he said. “Clone, what’s your operating number?”

“CC-2224,” Cody said, teething grinding just a little. “Marshall Commander of the 7th Sky Corps. I’m called—”

“I’m General Kahdah,” the man interrupted. “I’ll be taking command of the battalion.”

Cody’s back tensed; he felt his shoulders threatening to rise. The General—his new General—stared at him, frowning. Hard to tell from a hologram what a man was like, but his speech was clipped, pure Coruscanti upper-levels, but without the sly poke Obi-Wan gave to his words.

“Hmm,” the General said again, frowning harder. “Ordinarily, I’d be informing your commanding officer, but in light of recent events we can both see that isn’t possible. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Cody said. He had a bad feeling about this.

“My flagship, the _Imperator_ , will arrive at Utapau in six hours. I expect you to be waiting for me when I transfer to the _Vigilance_ to take command officially.”

“Yes, sir,” Cody repeated. He pressed his hands to his armor plates on his thighs. That was quick; that was damned quick.

The General’s eyes narrowed. “Do you understand, CC-224?” he asked. “I am in command now. The _Imperator_ will reinforce the 212th on the planet’s surface to eliminate the native threat while the 501st return to Coruscant. You’ll have to work out the chain of command with the detachment I’ve brought with me from Maurania.”

“It’s CC-2224. Sir,” Cody said.

“What?” 

“CC-2224,” Cody repeated.

The General nodded. “I’m sure it is,” he said. “I warn you now, I’m a military man, Commander. I expect discipline and order. With the [Traitor] threat eliminated, we finally have a chance to win this war, and I am not going to pass it up.”

“No, sir,” Cody said, nodding. “We’ll be prepared.”

“Hmm,” the General said, and nodded back. “I’ll expect my quarters cleared of any [Traitor] filth by the time I arrive. See to it personally.” He raised his hand towards something off-screen, and the holographic comm unit went dark.

Cody sat back in his chair. The side of his head throbbed. Obi-Wan was a [traitor]; Kahdah was a general. The difference in his head felt like that time the air filters had failed on Rykellia and for two hours everything Cody touched tasted like Panna Cakes. He needed to talk to Rex.

 

***

 

Obi-Wan had more stashes than a smuggler in his room, and Cody knew about each and every one of them. He found the leftover bits from Obi-Wan’s undercover missions inside the hollowed out blaster case behind a rebreather charging station under the kitchenette sink. If General Kahdah wanted him to clean out Obi-Wan’s _filth_ , then that was exactly what Cody would do, starting right there.

He stood up from the floor and placed the blaster case on the counter, snapped the latches at either end, and cracked the top. He pulled out the bare false panel and set it aside. He snorted; Obi-Wan had carefully wrapped everything in patterned fabric, held down by straps bolted inside the case. Cody rubbed his thumb between his eyes, trying to smooth out the jab of pain. He unwrapped everything, spreading out the fabric squares along the counter; Obi-Wan always stored his less-than-legal equipment in pieces to avoid detection. The round comm unit was easy enough to identify. The scrubbed blaster was clean enough, and he laid the pieces out onto the fabric squares one at a time along with its cartridges. Where in the Hutt hells had Obi-Wan gotten a WESTAR-34 blaster anyway? Cody shook his head and unwrapped the comm unit’s power booster.

It was easy enough to connect the battery to the unit, but the scrambler took a full five minutes to slice into its frequency. Cody rubbed his face and glanced in the direction of the fresher. That mess of wires and shielded chips was so illegal that Obi-Wan could have gotten ten years just for picking it up, much less keeping it. Cody took a deep breath; his headache was coming back. 

The comm unit’s holographic platform glowed blue with a shifting rim of white and yellow light. Cody tapped in Rex’s personal code; even if he’d been relieved of official command he still retained his rank privileges. Cody picked up the comm unit and held it while the platform’s blue light cycled, dimming and brightening as it sought the connection. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and looked around the room, from his own helmet on its hook near the door to the bed; it felt strange to be in Obi-Wan’s space without him knowing about it.

Cody hadn’t heard from Rex in months, not since he’d been seconded to Special Ops and Appo had been given temporary command of the 501st. Rex had been out of the loop for so long, Cody wasn’t sure he’d even know that [Order 66] had been given, but [Traitor] Skywalker had to have been at the Temple, even if he hadn’t been on the list. Knowing the [Traitors], that meant he’d be trying to join up with Obi-Wan as well. If they were together, then the 501st [should hunt them down].

He jammed his thumb on the disconnect button and walked to the middle of the room. No, no, this was a bad idea. Cody tossed the comm unit onto Obi-Wan’s messy desk and opened the closet. He pulled Obi-Wan’s spare clothes off their hangers and dragged his small travel case out. He set the case and clothes on the bed and unclipped the flap on the top. He had his orders from General—from his _commanding officer_ , and he could call Rex some other time, when he could think more clearly. Rex had access to all the same reports that Cody did. He would already know. It was just Cody refusing to see the truth and falling back on a malfunctioning _clone_ whose name he couldn’t even remember to help him believe a lie.

Cody picked up Obi-Wan’s white undershirt and tossed it in the bag. The carefully mended pants and the belt with the wonky clasp went next. A ragged cough tore out of his throat, and he pressed his mouth against his gauntlet. The durasteel felt cold against his lips. He hadn’t meant that. They were people, not droids; Rex’s man hadn’t malfunctioned. He’d just been lost. The back of Cody’s head throbbed. 

He let his arm fall, turned, and picked up the comm unit. The shifting yellow and white lights from the scrambler’s encoding were still running. He entered Rex’s code again. The holographic interface lit up. He tapped his foot. It didn’t matter; he still needed to talk to Rex. General Kahdah’s timing was too convenient. The 212th had barely taken control of Pau City when the [Order 66] had been transmitted, and it was barely into the next day. A hard knot curled up and clenched in the base of Cody's throat as the comm unit cycled and kept on cycling. The blue light swirled upwards and then settled back as the encryption flared to knee-height on Rex’s hologram.

Cody stared at him. Rex’s avatar crossed his arms. The resolution was bad enough that pixels sparked fuzzily around the crown of his buzzcut. Either the scrambler was playing kriffing hell with the transmission, or Rex was far into the Outer Rim.

“Cody.” Rex’s voice was the same, just that smallest bit deeper than everyone else’s. He tilted his head to the side. “I nearly didn’t answer. Our unit couldn’t tell us where the frequency was coming from.” 

At least he knew the comm unit was working. Cody looked at Rex’s avatar. He didn’t seem bruised and he was standing at ease, nothing obviously broken, but his face was too rigidly calm, like he’d been after Umbara. Cody set down the comm unit. The indicator light, showing blue for visual and audio, turned to orange.

“Wait a minute, you’ve cut out!” 

“I’m doing something,” Cody said. He returned to the closet, and bent down to the locker at the bottom. He opened it. “Did you—do you know what’s happened? Do they keep you up to date in whatever pile of stang op you’re running?”

There was a pause, and Cody glanced over his shoulder. Rex’s avatar gestured to someone out of sight, then nodded once and refolded his arms. Even from his position, Cody could see the carefully still way Rex held himself.

“I’ve read the reports,” Rex said.

“I need you to listen to something,” Cody said, forcing the words out. He pulled out two small boxes, and a closed bag that clanked when he lifted it. “Just—just listen to what I’m going to tell you and then tell me if you can hear the difference.”

Rex paused again, long enough for Cody to set Obi-Wan’s things on the bed. Cody swallowed and picked the bag back up. His stomach clenched, acid swirling up his throat. He coughed again, and opened the bag.

“All right,” Rex said, drawing out his words.

Cody reached into the bag and drew out one of Obi-Wan’s bracers. “[Traitor] Obi-Wan Kenobi is in command of the Third Systems Army. General Kahdah is in command of the Third Systems Army.”

He looked down at the bracer with its battered Open Circle Fleet emblem, and traced his fingertip across the yellow circle in the space between the separated red arcs. Obi-Wan always wore this one and its blank counterpart. He’d picked them up…somewhere, Cody couldn’t remember, he only remembered the stir it’d caused belowdecks to have a commanding officer who understood what the symbols on a clone trooper’s armor really meant. The [traitors] were usually polite, most of them could even consistently tell clones apart, but only a few really understood what made the survival stripes and ranking marks special. Cody frowned, and held the bracer in both hands; the catches had finally failed on the old things and Obi-Wan hadn’t had time to repair them before Utapau. 

“I don’t understand,” Rex said. 

Cody looked down at the yellow stripes on his cuirass and sniffed loudly. He cleared his throat.

“Can you hear the difference?” he asked

“The different names? Who the krif is Kahdah? And what do you mean General Kenobi is a—”

“Obi-Wan Kenobi’s rank is _[Traitor_ ],” Cody broke in, raising his voice. “Whatever-The-Kark Kahdah’s rank is _General_.”

“Cody, he _isn’t_.”

Cody dropped the bracer into its bag and the bag to the bed. “What did I just say?”

Rex frowned. “I don’t like playing games, Cody.”

“Obi-Wan is a [Traitor.] He is a _[Traitor]._ Kahdah is a General.”

He saw Rex swallow, and then Cody closed his eyes. “I can’t hear a difference, Rex.”

Silence from the other end of the line. 

“I can feel it, if I concentrate, but I can’t hear it and I can’t shake it off. The Grand Army of the Republic [lawfully executes] over half its leadership and I know—I know—I want to know about your man, the one Fox had to shoot back on Coruscant.”

“Fives,” Rex said, something heavy and a little broken in his voice. Cody turned away from the comm unit and tossed Obi-Wan’s boots into the bag. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sucked air in through his open mouth. The bracer bag went in next, and then he took the boots out. 

“He wasn’t insane,” Rex said. “He was—kriffing hell, Cody, I told you about this. He was _right_. The damn Kaminoans put chips in our heads, they programmed us like karking clankers.”

“It’s unbelievable,” Cody said, bending down and flipping the blanket up to look under the bed. Kahdah was going to sleep in this bed, in _Obi-Wan’s_ bed. 

“Are you seriously going to argue with me about this now?” Rex asked as Cody ran his hand underneath the bedframe. He yanked hard, pulling out the two packets adhered to the mattress slats, and leaned back on his heels. He threw the packets on bed and stood. 

“We were made for the [traitors],” he insisted. “The Kaminoans were contracted by a damn [Traitor]! Why would he—why would anyone do this when the only person who can order us to commit—[lawfully execute] our leaders is the…”

Cody sat down on the bed and the bag leaned against his side. 

“Obi-Wan never liked the Chancellor,” he said, and swallowed.

“It could be a ruse,” Rex said, a little too quickly. “Someone hijacking the Chancellor’s frequency and mocking up a holographic puppet. He’s always been good to General Skywalker.”

“Does it matter? We’re still karked. The 212th’s stuck blasting caves on Utapau and I’ve got Obi-Wan’s replacement inbound from Maurania.”

“We’re not finished yet,” Rex said. He saw Rex’s avatar take a deep breath. The pixelated top of his head flashed briefly. “Is General Kenobi dead?”

Cody flinched and rubbed at his scar as a burst of pain crackled through his head. He pressed the heel of his right hand to his temple. His eyesight went a little fuzzy.

“I missed.”

Rex sagged just a little, armored shoulders hunching forward. He dipped his chin to his cuirass and then raised it again. “How soon can you rendezvous with me? Give me your coordinates.”

“What?” Cody dropped his hand to the top of the bag and winced as his hair caught on a joint in his gauntlet. “What do you mean, rendezvous? I can’t steal the _Vigilance_.”

“Of course you can’t,” Rex said. “It would attract too much attention. Steal one of the shuttles and we’ll pick you up.”

Cody ground his teeth. “I can’t abandon the men.” He stood and grabbed the comm unit from the desk; the indicator light switched from orange to blue as the holograph camera engaged. 

“You look terrible,” Rex said.

“It’s been a rough day,” Cody said. “Shut up. I’ve got half my battalion fighting on a dustball and the other half in the Medbay. I can’t go AWOL.”

Rex dropped his hands to his blasters, gripping them in their holsters. “If your General’s just been attacked by his own men, the only place he’ll go is back to the Temple,” he said. “General Skywalker was on Coruscant, last time I checked in. We need to get them off that planet.”

“I am not leaving our brothers to some birthborn Kowakian monkey-lizard.”

Cody kicked the chair, knocking it into the desk and sending a pile of flimsies to the floor. Obi-Wan’s lightsaber kit rattled. Cody winced. It had to be time for another pain tab. Or maybe that bottle of Corellian whiskey he kept in his own footlocker.

Rex frowned. He pinched the bridge of his nose with his right hand and then dropped it back to his blaster. “Cody.”

“Rex.”

“Fives was right,” Rex said, his eyes narrowing. “Someone did this to us. Someone powerful enough and rich enough to make the Kaminoans break a contract decided to take our kriffing minds away from us, to make us clones nothing but droids. If we’re going to stop them, we need to work together. I need your help.”

“I…” Cody trailed off on a hissing rush of air. His stomach sank, twisting in on itself. He shook his head. “I’ve got my orders. I’m a good soldier, Rex. I can’t just leave.”

Rex looked down, but Cody could see his jaw clenching. “I’m sending the coordinates,” he said. “Kriffing be there.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to thefourthvine for her excellent suggestions and beta, and to stickmarionette for helping cement the clones legal status within the Republic, as well as the Jedi precedent.

Chapter Three

 

Steal a shuttle. Just walk into the main hangar and steal a shuttle, never mind the outboard shield enclosing the mouth of the bay from deep space or the thousands of their brothers who might be a little upset at their commander trying to abandon them in the middle of a war. Rex could be a real kriffing bastard sometimes. Cody couldn’t just _leave._

The elevator lights flickered as it slowed three floors from the Medbay on Level 28. Cody rocked back and forth on his heels and hit 14 on the touchpad for the crew deck. Obi-Wan’s pack swung from his right hand, bumping into his knee.

His [Traitor] could take care of himself. He was a karking lunatic, of course, always throwing himself out of perfectly good Larties and into storms of blaster fire, but he usually came back, smiling like a fool and protesting that ‘no, that wasn't _his_ war cry over the commlink, Cody, you must have been tuned to the wrong frequency.’ He was a survivor, the [Order 66] proved that Obi-Wan could beat anything.

Cody shifted his grip on the pack and chewed on his lower lip. The doors shifted open to reveal the glass-walled corridors of the Medbay level, still crowded with troops, and then closed. The elevator shuddered as it cycled downward again.

If Rex was right, though, if Fives hadn’t been a karking madman, then someone had been using Cody and his brothers from the very beginning. Someone who was probably using the 501st against [Traitor] Skywalker even now, and Obi-Wan was out there, isolated—probably wounded—and with no one to watch his kriffing di’kut back while he wrung the last drops of fuel out of a stolen short-range flyer straight into danger. Cody’s right eyelid twitched steadily. 

He tapped in his command override for the crew deck on Level 14, and then hit the button for Level 28. The luma panels in the walls flickered as the elevator came to a stop and then rose.

It couldn’t hurt to verify Rex’s claims. Cody snorted and squeezed his eyes shut briefly as gravity pressed down on him. As he opened them again, he resettled his helmet on his head with his free hand. He remembered Fives now, a little bit anyway. He’d been a smart ARC trooper, loyal to his brothers. During that whole AWOL business, Cody’d been running maneuvers along one of the Hutt trade hyperlanes, scaring pirates too stupid not to realize the only thing Cody cared about was finishing the blasted show of force for their ‘allies’ and getting back to the war. Which he’d be abandoning again, even if what Fives and Rex said felt true. Even if it made the sickest, most crushing sort of sense in the pit of Cody’s stomach. 

But instincts weren’t everything. Sometimes they were wrong, and that was why they had orders. He reached out, gauntleted hand wavering over the touchpad. He frowned. He tapped in the override code again, and ran his thumb over the Level 14 icon. A memory flickered in back of his head: his [Traitor] striding back and forth so fast his hologram had blurred sticks for legs. He’d been pretending not to be angry again. They’d been forced to send messages in short data packages, with days of static and low frequency colonist comm chatter in between. Obi-Wan had come back from a meeting with his [conspiracy], and actually complained for once about having to talk them out of cutting…of cutting one of [Traitor] Skywalker’s men up, to find out why he’d killed a Knight. Obi-Wan was like that, always so shocked when a clone was treated like a clone, disposable even if he hadn’t paid off his Creation Debt yet. 

Cody shook his head. His optics fuzzed and then sharpened on the serial numbers etched across the doors. He slammed his fist into the touchpad, cracking the screen, and threw Obi-Wan’s pack into the door. It hit with a jangle of straps and slid to the floor. The elevator shuddered to a halt. Cody chewed harder on his bottom lip and tried to breathe calmly, to fix himself in one spot and feel his body containing him from one kriffing moment to the karking next. The air filter in his helmet hissed loudly, struggling to keep up.

What he wanted didn’t matter with so many lives at stake. It would have been one thing if he could have left the battalion in her officers’ charge, but with General Kahdah on his way with his own complement of staff, Cody’s absence—no, his _mutiny_ —would put every single brother at risk. He’d stow Obi-Wan’s things in his own berth, and tell Rex that he had to stay. 

Cody pressed his hand to the front of his helmet. He tasted a hint of blood and pushed his lower lip out from between his teeth with his tongue. Obi-Wan’d probably already lost his lightsaber by now. He always did, and in the most unlikely places, like that time on Taanab when the _Negotiator_ had stopped for a day’s liberty and he’d managed to leave it in a restaurant’s fresher. 

Every second he was getting farther and farther away. Had he—no, he couldn’t have felt the [traitors being executed] at the Temple, not all the way from Coruscant. He probably hadn’t even known who shot him down.

He flinched and took a deep breath. No wonder the [traitors] had outlawed attachments, if this soured gut feeling was what they led to. He flinched again. The Republic had ordered the 212th to secure Utapau and that was what he should do. His [Traitor] understood about duty, he was more like a clone than any [traitor] Cody’d ever served. Obi-Wan wouldn’t expect Cody to come, unless it would be to finish what [Order 66] told him to do. None of them ever really expected a rescue, even when they...even when they deserved it. 

His wrist commlink blinked white to blue, and Cody brought it up level with his voice filter. He looked at Obi-Wan’s pack on the floor and pushed the Receive button. 

“Sir, our internal sensors have tracked repeated use of your personal override in Elevator 6138G,” Moti said. “It looks as though the control panel is malfunctioning. Should we send a maintenance crew to…” Cody could hear buttons being pushed, and then, “Level 20?”

Their [Traitor] had always come for them, though. He’d done his best. Cody shook his head and breathed through the renewed ache radiating up from the base of his neck. 

“Negative, Sergeant,” he said. “Meet me at the Medbay elevators. I need a fresh pair of eyes.”

“Uh, yes sir,” Moti said. “I’ll meet you there.”

They clicked off and Cody let his arms drop to his sides. He reached down and picked Obi-Wan’s pack up from the floor. The touchpad’s screen warped slightly when he typed in his override code and touched the Level 28 icon. 

 

***

 

The rooms on the MedBay level had windows for walls, and every bed was full. The corridor leading up to the main healing room was covered in scorch marks from deflected blaster bolts; bodies lay stretched out to either side of the hall. Tan-Oshi had not gone quietly. Cody’s throat tightened and he coughed to clear it.

Cody held Obi-Wan’s pack against his side underneath his right arm as he and Moti walked down the hallway. The little tics hadn’t gone away; Moti’s left hand clenched around the casing of his tablet, while the other tapped a frantic beat against his pant leg. 

“You wanted to see me, sir,” he said. His right eye was a sunburst of broken capillaries.

Cody nodded. “I need to see a medic about a rumor,” he said. “I thought you might be interested.”

Moti fell out of step, pausing as Cody walked on, and then chuckle-hiccupped. He caught back up to Cody’s side. “Sir?” he asked.

“Through here,” Cody said. He pointed to the right as the main corridor forked between the observation and surgery rooms. Moti adjusted his path accordingly.

Cody nodded at a passing squad and saluted in answer to theirs. It looked like an amalgamated group from the 501st; two of them had markings across their shoulders that had them hailing from the sappers' division and the other three had paratrooper tabs on their helmets. Moti’s hand shook when he saluted, and he snapped it back down to his side as quickly as possible. 

“Is there,” Moti swallowed. “Commander, was there something in the reports I’ve been filing, because we looked—I mean, I have been very thorough and—”

“At ease, Sergeant,” Cody snapped, stomach clenching. So it wasn’t just him and Rex trying to figure out what was happening. That shouldn’t be such a kriffing surprise, maybe, but it was good to know all the same. He took a deep breath. The bodies seemed to lead towards the scanning bay. Cody frowned. The tarps that should have been covering the corpses were shoved down to their midsections and the dead were all in shipboard greys. He slowed down in mid-stride. No way were those wounds taken in combat.

“We had a problem in Engineering, sir,” Moti said quietly. “And the Armory. Medical only just now finished the tally. There’s a report at your terminal.”

“Of course,” Cody said, hearing his own voice distantly. He shook his head and tightened his grip around the straps of Obi-Wan’s pack. Ahead of them, the door of the scanning bay had a freshly scrubbed face and was still dripping water onto the floor. A guard stood outside of it; he wore Adenn squad’s sigil, a droid head with crossed lightsabers, on his yellow pauldrons. The guard came to attention, elbow knocking sharply against the door.

Cody looked towards Moti. “We’re going to go inside that bay,” he said, quietly. “And you’re going to watch while the medic—one of our boys, not the EmmDees—gives me an atomic-level brain scan. Then we’ll…” he shrugged, trailing off. “I guess we’ll see from there.”

Moti’s face went ashy pale around the mouth as his lips tightened to a tense line. He nodded, and Cody nodded back. 

They walked forward. Cody breathed in slowly, raising his chin. He nodded at the guard, raising his eyebrows as the man hesitated before moving out of his way. His helmet had thick black hash marks ringing the eye lenses that looped around the air filter and speaker ports over the mouth.

“Anything the matter, Trip-Sevens?” he asked.

“Commander,” Trip-Sevens said loudly, standing to one side as the scanning bay door opened. His voice seemed a little high. “Commander Cody, what a pleasant surprise!”

“And how nice to see you, as well, Trooper,” Cody said as he and Moti walked past him.

Trip-Sevens followed them inside. “Commander on deck,” someone inside shouted.

That was a hell of a lot of formality. Cody frowned, looking over the room with Moti twitching at his side. The scanning room was one of the smaller spaces in the Medbay, but it was still large enough for a diagnostic droid pair plus the intensive scanners and six beds. Now, half of the beds were occupied by corpses, fully covered at least. Next to the other three, assorted men stood at attention, side by side. Juri and Snag he remembered from reviewing Adenn before launching the Pau City assault. Triage was shipboard medical, and Twenty-Three, Dral, and Ink had ship security grey stripes outlining the yellow slashes on their armor. The medical droids were in their recharging stations, jacked into the ports on the walls and clearly offline. 

He set Obi-Wan’s pack on the nearest bed, and heard a quiet click from far off to his right. Cody’s HUD focused in on each of the men in the room. None of them had moved. 

“At ease,” Cody said. Most of the men sat back down again, but they didn’t relax. “What are you all doing here?”

Triage inhaled and then coughed. “What can I do for you, sir? It’s a karking mess out there, but we’re getting down to the stubbed toes and hangnails pretty soon.” 

He rubbed his hand over the thick stripe of hair in the center of his bare scalp. The corner of his mouth kept twitching to the side. Triage’s eyes flicked over Cody’s shoulder to Moti and then away. Twenty-Three fidgeted in Cody’s peripheral vision, squirming in his seat on the bed. Cody turned his head just slightly. Twenty-Three was still a shiny, rotating through shipboard duties until the sergeants had a bead on his skillset. He had a folded brown robe clutched in his lap and he was rubbing the hood between his fingers. His lips were moving, but Cody couldn’t hear him. Cody’s back stiffened and his shoulders drew down. He cocked his head at Ink and Dral sitting to either side of their shiny. Ink put his left forearm down over Twenty-three’s hands, stilling them.

“I don’t see anybody bleeding,” Cody said. His chest tightened as he breathed in, and looked around the room again.

“Just here for some scans, Commander,” Juri said. He’d dyed his hair in blue streaks since the review, and it was long enough to be falling out of his bun. He scratched the synthflesh patch sealed to the side of his neck with two fingers. “We got pinned by supers during the drop on the second level and took shrapnel damage. Rivet pulled us out of the hangar by our shebs and told us to report to medical.”

“Rivet’s here, too,” Snag added. He grunted when Juri knocked into him with his shoulder, and tucked his scarred chin against his gorget. 

The other men, except for Twenty-Three, glanced at each other. Cody’s HUD registered two heat signatures behind the big scanner in the corner where the operator was supposed to stand. He pulled off his helmet with both hands and set it down next to the pack with his right. He rubbed his left palm over his face.

“Someone want to tell me what’s going on here?” he asked.

“There were a lot of problems with the silicate dust on Utapau,” Triage said. “The sinkholes kicked up a karking bantha pen’s worth of osik and overloaded the filters in many of the troop’s helmets. Rivet thought—” 

Cody heard a scuffle behind the big machine, and then Rivet stumbled out around the diagnostic bed. “It’s nothing, sir,” he said. He rubbed his nose with a bloody tissue and tossed it into the bio-refuse bin against the wall. “Just running a few tests.”

“I thought all the combat medics were down on Utapau?” Moti asked.

He walked a few feet apart, turning his tablet over and over in his hands. Cody stepped closer to Rivet, angling himself so his back was to Moti only. Rivet’s cheeks, both tattooed with the medical corps red articulated cross, twitched as if he couldn’t keep his mouth still. He was fully kitted out, except for the helmet and his backpack.

“Shipped up with Adenn during the pullout to the Rendezvous Point,” Rivet said, staring directly at Cody. “I figured if we were taking on the 501st’s wounded, the brothers might need some help.”

“They don’t need help, _they_ didn’t—” Twenty-Three muttered, before being shushed. 

Cody glanced to the side. Dral had his arm around Twenty-Three’s shoulders and Ink was tugging on the [traitor] robe in his grasp. He turned back to Rivet.

“You men can clear out,” he said. “Get some rest. We’re heading back for the final push into Utapau soon, and I need to speak with Rivet in private. Your kriffing friend back there planning on coming out anytime soon?”

He pointed over Rivet’s shoulder with his left hand to where that second heat signature he’d seen was still hiding and rested his right hand on the butt of his sidearm. The squeezing pressure at the back of his head looped once around his shoulders and held tight. Definitely time for another Pexereca once he’d cleared the room.

“Rest,” Twenty-Three snorted.

“Watch it, shiny,” Juri said, and stood up. “Commander, it hasn’t even been a full day, shouldn’t we give the [Traitor] more time?”

The men all winced at the same time. Dral’s armor clacked against the bed frame as he hunched closer to his brothers. Snag put his hand on the plate covering Juri’s back. Cody ground his teeth, and tucked his hands behind his waist. 

“So you don’t buy it either?” Moti blurted out.

“ _Fierfek_ , no,” Trip-Sevens said. “We—”

Cody glared, and Trip-Sevens stuttered into silence. Moti stepped further into the room; his hands shook, rattling his tablet against his rank badges. 

“Nothing’s been confirmed yet,” Cody said, and closed his eyes briefly at the flare of pain burning up the back of his head.

Juri snorted. Trip-Sevens moved closer to one of the occupied beds and put his hand on the corpse’s covered foot. Cody tasted blood at the back of his mouth and swallowed. He wasn’t prepared for this; it’d been bad enough on the command deck.

“[Traitor] Kenobi saved me on Jabiim,” Juri said. “Why’d he want to kill me now?”

“Wake up,” muttered Twenty-Three.

“Stop saying that,” Ink hissed and gave the [traitor’s] robe another yank.

It couldn’t hurt to tell them. He’d have to make a ship-wide announcement before they hyped back to Utapau anyway, and…and if Rex was right—which he still might not be—then at least they’d know who to follow when Cody was…not there. His gut twisted. 

“We’ve got our orders,” he said. “General Kahdah is already en route to assume command of the 212th. The Republic wants Utapau brought back into the fold.”

Juri looked over at Trip-Sevens, still closest to the door, and pushed his stringy hair out of his face. Trip-Sevens resettled his grip on his Deece, angling the blaster across his chest.

“But I thought…” Snag raised his head to look at Cody. “Didn’t we hype out to the rendezvous point [to kill] Ba’vodu?” He grimaced and pressed his lips together, crushing the shrapnel scars that burst up from his chin to the bottom of his nose into a clump. 

“Ba’vodu?” Cody repeated to cover the stutter of his heartbeat when one of his brothers called for Obi-Wan’s death. They weren’t supposed to sound like that.

“Sorry, sir,” Snag said, looking down at his lap. He shook his head and rubbed both hands up and over his black buzzcut. “I meant the [Traitor.]”

“Well, I like _our_ name for him,” Triage said, frowning. He had a tracery of broken capillaries branching out over his cheeks as he spoke. His head shook. “At least we can say it.”

He glanced at Cody before quickly turning his head. The air in the room turned heavy. It weighed Cody’s lungs down when he breathed. The Battalion’s nickname for Obi-Wan wasn’t the worst he’d ever heard—that would probably have gone to General Fisto’s battle group—but he’d never tried to make it popular. The 212th’s business belonged to them, not the civilians. ‘Ba’vodu’ was a notch above ‘The Negotiator’ only because it wasn’t splashed across every piece of war propaganda the Chancellor could wheedle out of the [Conspiracy’s] control. The [Traitors] of the Open Circle Fleet were the most famous faces in the GAR; nothing painted a bigger target on the [traitors’] heads than being recognizable, after all. They already had the damn lightsabers. The karking bounty on Obi-Wan tripled with every new press release. Cody clenched his hands beneath his crossed arms. 

“Sir, I’m almost done here. I swear I’ll be turning in my report as soon as possible,” Rivet broke in. He stepped closer, flicking the fingertips of his gauntlets like they were his nails. His right cheek bulged and then wavered, like he was biting the inside of his mouth.

There were too many uninjured clones in the room for this stang to make sense, and the dead ones worried him. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re doing first,” Cody said. “And I’ll tell you if it’s worth reporting.”

“Sir,” Boil said, coming out from behind the scanning machine. “I think we all might need to stay.”

Cody took a step back and dropped a hand to his blaster. “You missed roll call, Sergeant,” he said. He took a deep breath to hide the jump in his pulse. “I thought you were AWOL with the rest of Ghost Company.”

He saw Adenn squad and ship security move closer to one another in his peripherals. Moti’s chuckle-hiccup died out in a click of his teeth. Boil walked over to stand next to Rivet. He’d lost half his goatee and most of the right side of his face to a bacta patch sealed at a diagonal from his cheek to his temple. His armor was dented and scratched, still filthy from the ground assault.

“We—Rivet’s been scanning the casualties from Engineering and the brothers who died in the hangar,” Boil said, out of the side of his mouth. His sharp voice came out slower than usual, but precise. Rivet must’ve given him some of the Derncoe pain syrettes; they made all the muscles numb.

“Got a lot of friends in the five-oh-one?” Cody asked. 

“I thought I was having another nightmare, so I tried to eat my blaster in the hangar, right before Crys loaded the last of the brothers up,” Boil said, and jerked his thumb towards his face. “It woke me up before. I’d be dead if Rivet hadn’t—kicked me—in the arm.”

“He _kicked_ you?” Trip-Sevens asked.

Boil and Rivet glanced at each other. “I didn’t have anything close enough to throw,” Rivet said, shrugging. 

Cody looked away, but his sightline caught on the [Traitors’] small winged starburst in the top right quadrant of the articulated cross decal on Rivet’s chest. He’d gotten extra training in [Trai—] in Tan-Oshi’s xeno-and-[Traitor] certification courses. Her reports had been glowing enough for Obi-Wan to remark on it. Cody looked up. Rivet’s nose was bleeding. He was almost vibrating in place. Boil handed him another tissue.

“How come we can call him ‘uncle,’ but not [Traitor?]” Trip-Sevens asked suddenly. His voice was a touch more clear than the rest of the brothers; it made him sound younger. “The Negotiator—” he waggled his bucket from side to side, indicating he was rolling his eyes. “Ba’vodu. [Traitor.]”

Twenty-Three hissed and pulled away from Dral to lean forward over his own lap. Ink sighed. Triage walked closer to their bed, and stood at the head of it. 

“It’s the same for us,” Ink said, clearing his throat. “We could say ‘Healer’ and, uh…” 

Ink didn’t finish. He rubbed his thumb over his right eyebrow. His other hand visibly shook on his knee. Last weapons reclassification, Ink had had the steadiest hands in the 212th. 

Dral nodded. His forehead creased, ruining the lines of his tattoo.

Cody squeezed his hand around the butt of his blaster. “We can say their names,” he said finally.

No one seemed to want to look at him. Cody lifted his chin and clenched his jaw. Boil cleared his throat.

“Bet you said the [Traitor’s] name a lot,” Twenty-Three said suddenly. “You should be glad you don’t have to anymore.”

The men froze. Cody stiffened. “What?” 

“Fierfek, Twenty-Three, _shut up _,” Dral said, and knocked him in the plates.__

__“Kriffing get off,” Twenty-Three said, struggling up from his place on the bed. He stumbled back, holding the robe against his chest with one hand. It unfolded, dragging the rough brown weave down to his knees. He dragged the back of his free hand up the left side of his face. “ _Osik._ ”_ _

__“Get ahold of yourself, Trooper,” Cody said, stepping towards him. “We have to keep it together if we…if we really want to find out what’s going on.”_ _

__“The five-oh-one were telling the truth, Commander,” Boil said, losing his crispness a bit. “Rivet can show—”_ _

__“They were traitors!” Twenty-Three yelled, throwing his left arm out to the side. “They were, they were, they _kept_ us out here fighting even though we all kept dying. They betrayed us! We’re good soldiers!”_ _

__He was shaking, a constant full-body shiver, with sweat glistening on his forehead and matting down his regulation crew cut. The [traitor’s] robe wavered at his side. Whose was it? Tan-Oshi and Athonjo had been about the same size. Cody shook his head._ _

__“Twenty-Three…” He trailed off. He was saying this; he was admitting it out loud to his own men. His gut roiled, muscles cramping up and lungs trying to seize even as he spoke. “None of our brothers would have killed themselves over a correct order. The 212th doesn’t run. Someone’s compromised the GAR.”_ _

__He couldn’t say it was the Chancellor. His lungs burned._ _

__“The Seppies,” Juri said, near growling._ _

__“Not according to the 501st,” Moti said. “Triage, tell them. Tell them what your buddy on Striil squad said.”_ _

__Twenty-Three stabbed the air in front of him, aimed at Cody. He bounced on his toes, hands twisting into fists. He licked his lips and his eyes flickered up and down Cody’s body and then behind him, before fixating at Cody’s waist, where he still had a grip on his blaster. The robe dangled by Twenty-Three’s side, brushing back and forth against the floor. His face, clean-shaven and undecorated, twisted into thick lines as his lips pulled back from his teeth._ _

__“ _No_ ,” he said. “No, we follow our orders. You taught me to follow our orders. This isn’t happening. I’m right, I’m right, and no karking hut'uunla skanah who got on his knees to pay down his Creation Debt is going to tell me different!”_ _

__The room erupted, and Twenty-Three’s head went down as he lurched forward. He rushed across the room, arms outstretched in a scramble of limbs and robe. Cody braced himself, shifting his weight to his heels. Twenty-Three dropped the robe and grabbed for Cody’s blaster with his right hand as he turned his body inward, left elbow striking for Cody’s solar plexus._ _

__Cody pivoted and latched on to Twenty-Three’s wrist with his opposite hand. He let Twenty-Three’s momentum carry him past as he twisted the trooper’s arm up and back. Twenty-Three yelled, voice shredding into nonsense, as Cody slammed his heel into the back of his knee and followed him down to the floor. He pinned Twenty-Three with a knee to the small of his back and put pressure on his right arm, holding it against his spine._ _

__“Get back!” Cody yelled. He saw Juri and Snag draw their blasters and aim over his head, and the click of safeties coming off behind him. Beneath him, Twenty-Three howled and slammed his forehead against the ground._ _

__“Blast it all to—Twenty-Three, _stop it_ , you di’kutla son of a Hutt,” Rivet said, kneeling down. He put his hands under Twenty-Three’s forehead, and held on._ _

__Twenty-Three yelled and then sobbed. His hips bucked as he rocked from side to side, fighting Cody’s grip._ _

__“Sir, he didn’t mean it!” Ink yelled. “Swear on the [Traitors’] lives, he—”_ _

__Ink cut off with a choke, and Cody glanced up, nearly biting his tongue as Twenty-Three jerked beneath him. Juri raised his blaster to his shoulder. His hair fell down across the harsh frown on his face._ _

__“I saw that kriffing airlock, you sick piece of bantha fodder,” Juri said. “Don’t you kriffing dare.”_ _

__“We were in another part of the ship!” Dral shouted._ _

__Twenty-Three moaned._ _

__“I do not need more dead bodies on this ship,” Triage said. “Karking hell, stand _down._ ”_ _

__“Force take it,” Cody said. He snarled and bore down; Twenty-Three’s feet skittered uselessly on the floor, but his armored boots made a hell of a screeching racket. “If you hear any blasters discharging in this room, Boil, you have my permission to blow us all to hell.”_ _

__“Sir, yes, sir,” Boil said. “Uh…I sort of…lost my detonators, though? Down a sinkhole.”_ _

__Cody paused and blinked. “Of course you did,” he said, finally._ _

__Moti chuckle-hiccupped. “It’s in the report, sir,” he said._ _

__Cody took a deep breath and let a chuckle that was more air than noise escape him. He glanced up at Juri and then over his shoulder. Dral and Ink were staring down at him, blasters held at their sides. Trip-Sevens looked like he was covering the whole room from the corner, and Triage was hovering in the middle, face almost as red as the broken capillaries in his sclera. The air seemed a little thinner, but hot with static. The back of Cody’s head throbbed, little red pulses of light worming into the corners of his vision. He looked back downward. Rivet was down on his elbows, murmuring into Twenty-Three’s ear. Twenty-Three shook his head, and then collapsed, sinking into the floor and Rivet’s hands. He melted down as far as his plain armor would let him._ _

__Rivet looked up and caught Cody’s eye. He nodded and bent his head again. Twenty-Three mumbled something and Rivet pressed his forehead against his ear._ _

__Slowly, Cody leaned back. He let Twenty-Three’s arm slip from his grasp and stood up, careful not to press his weight into Twenty-Three’s back. His lungs ached as if he’d been breathing dust. He swallowed._ _

__“What’s he saying?” he asked._ _

__Rivet sat up, maneuvering Twenty-Three’s head and shoulders into his lap. He reached out over his back and pulled the fallen, dusty robe closer._ _

__“He’s sorry,” Rivet said, sighing. “He wants to wake up now.”_ _

__Cody looked away. He put his hands behind his back and gripped his right wrist with his left hand. His teeth clicked together as he clenched them. Moti walked closer, hands opening and closing._ _

__“Sergeant Tor tried that,” Dral said. “That’s what Twenty-Three said before Triage nabbed us. He—he pushed the airlock button and then he charged the squad; he killed Beam and then Twenty-Three killed him.”_ _

__This wasn’t going to get better. Every bone in Cody’s body ached, every muscle screamed at him to fall down and curl into a ball, hands over the back of his head, and brace for impact. He stood straighter instead, shivering as if he was back in the carbonite chamber, seconds before the flash-freeze had gotten him and the temperature had dipped. He saw the lists again in his mind’s eye._ _

__“I think you should see this, sir,” Boil said. Cody jerked his head around to look at him “Rivet’s already had a chance to scan me and Snag, as well as our dead. We’ve got proof.”_ _

__Cody breathed out, mildly surprised that his breath didn’t freeze in the air, and nodded. He didn’t want proof. It should have been a mistake, a storm-tale to frighten shinies like the ones they’d told each other in their pods on Kamino. It should just be _him_ , not all of his brothers. The lists unrolled in his mind again: Cato Neimoidia, Mygeeto, Kashyyyk. The weight of the names bore down on his shoulders._ _

__The men settled and holstered their weapons, but stood in their separate groups. Trip-Sevens moved to stand by Moti. Triage stayed where he was, and Boil and Rivet looked at each other. Rivet’s nose was bleeding again. He swiped his tissue against his upper lip and stroked the back of Twenty-Three’s head with his other hand. Boil disappeared behind the scanning machine and Cody heard pressurized clasps being unlocked._ _

__Boil returned, holding a tablet in one hand and a stack of specimen slides in the other. He held out the tablet and Cody took it from him._ _

__He tapped his thumb on the screen and flipped to the most recent file. The room was silent except for the sound of the men breathing. Cody’s throat squeezed itself shut; he swallowed hard and forced it back open. The bile in his stomach burned. He scrolled onward._ _

__CT-1343/43433b: 212th Engineering Corps., self-inflicted welding laser to the chest and an intact bio-chip in his brain. CT-3422: 501st Search and Destroy Division, DOA with a Droideka’s leg through his chest and a fused bio-chip. CT-653400/a: 212th Grenadiers, KIA with a bolt in every part of his body, including his head. Rivet had noted the remnants of neural pathways identical to the previous two bodies and a charred fragment of bio-chip. CT-5664: 212th Ghost Company…_ _

__Cody held the tablet out in front of him until Boil took it back. He bit the corners of his mouth hard and forced his face to hold its position. He put his hands behind his back again, grabbing hold of wrist, and lifted his chin._ _

__It was true. He swallowed heavily and pushed himself to concentrate on the motion of his breath. They’d been karked; Obi-Wan in his shuttle and the men here, every one of them betrayed._ _

__“Sir?” Moti asked, voice little more than a whisper._ _

__They were tools. [Order 66] made them no better than droids._ _

__Cody nodded. He worked his mouth until his jaw loosened enough for speech._ _

__“Whoever did this to us,” he said. “We’re going to find them, and we’re going to kriffing kill them.”_ _

__Boil’s eyes gleamed. “I was hoping you’d say that, sir,” he said._ _

__

__***_ _

__

__Planning to go AWOL wasn’t logistically much harder than planning an invasion, and it gave Cody the same swooping nausea as redefining battle parameters on the back of a speeder after the [traitors] had ripped through the AO. The _Vigilance_ was close enough to the Sanrafsix Corridor to justify the jump spinward from Utapau without officially letting _Kahdah_ know who they were hoping to meet up with there; the squads posted from the 501st would have a shorter trip if they detached from the 212th’s current position and then hyped coreward from the Rimma TR. Rex would never let him live it down; all they’d have to do was steal a shuttle and join the throng. Cody gave the men their assignments and they reconvened at the hangar deck, carrying as much as they could without drawing suspicion. _ _

__He latched the right epaulet lock into place and smacked both hands down on his shoulders to settle his new cuirass. Cody pinched his lips between his teeth and glanced at the blue scout/sniper tabs across his chest. There’d been plenty of the 501st’s armor for Juri and Snag to scavenge from Graves, but the cracks in the durasteel radiating out from the blaster hole in the bottom of his cuirass made his gut twist. It could pass muster from far enough away, if he kept his left arm down at his side, but not if anyone got a close look at him._ _

__“Is this the best you could get?” Trip-Sevens asked, holding up his heavily dented new greave._ _

__“Talk to Upgrade if you’ve got a problem,” Juri said. “He already accounted for most of the useable stuff. I was lucky to get this crate out the door while Snag pretended to need a new—”_ _

__Snag cleared his throat and blushed. He tossed his helmet to Ink, who caught it one-handed. He set it down on a crate, shook his paint can, and aimed the nozzle straight across the yellow triangle over Snag’s crest. No one could bring himself to take a dead man’s bucket, so Ink had been redesigning helmets on the fly. Dral looked up from where they’d laid Twenty-Three out on the stretcher and then turned his head back down. Triage wrapped his arm around his shoulders; they’d been responsible for dressing Twenty-Three in the 501st’s gear. Moti cleared his throat and shifted back from the open threshold of the supply bay._ _

__“Still clear,” he said, fingering his new lieutenant’s pips._ _

__“Well, no one is going to look at me and see a blasted sapper,” Boil said, carefully putting on his freshly painted helmet. “Ni vore ash’ad baarpir.”_ _

__“I promise not to think you could actually do the job,” Rivet said. He popped the gas cylinder into his Deece. His armor looked odd without his medic’s marks. “Just keep your pack over those shrapnel holes, all right?”_ _

__“Force take it, Snag, _don’t_ touch your helmet,” Ink snapped as he stood up from his crouch. “I don’t have enough paint to redo the stripes.”_ _

__“Sorry, sorry,” Snag said, holding his arms out to his sides. “It’s just—it’s just weird.”_ _

__He held still while Ink put his helmet on for him. Cody took a deep breath. The scout who’d worn this armor had been more narrow-chested than him; it fit, but barely. Moti stepped over to him as Triage powered up the stretcher and placed himself at the head, resting both hands on the push bar as it rose to waist-height. Dral stood and drifted over to the far wall._ _

__“Sir,” Moti said, lowering his voice. “Are you sure this is the only way? What if you’re all caught? What if Captain Rex doesn’t have the facilities to take the implant out? How are we even going to find the [tra—] Ba’vodu?”_ _

__The men paused, turning to look at them both, and Moti winced. Cody sighed. His chest hurt, muscles tightening at the base of his throat when he reached up to touch the brim of his LD visor. When Ink stiffened, Cody stopped and let his hand drift back to his side. He’d had Ink do his helmet first to show there was no going back. The smell of wet paint was in his air filter, so the blue sunburst across his visor and nose plate was probably still gummy. It was only temporary, of course, and he’d make sure they got the 212th’s colors back as soon as possible, but right now no one looked like themselves. It was like acting in one of those piece-of-stang HoloNet docudramas where one man played all his brothers’ parts and karked it up like the GAR was made of droids and not people. Cody’s clenched fists pressed against his thigh plates. He shook his head. Trip-Sevens came to attention; without the hash marks around his mouth filters he looked barely decanted._ _

__Moti stepped away and took up space along the wall next to Dral. They at least still looked like themselves._ _

__“That’s why I backdated your promotion as far back as I could get away with, _Lieutenant_ ,” Cody said. “You have to get the rest of the 212th through the clean-up planet-side while Ship’s Security here.” He pointed to Dral, then Ink. “Keep the crew moving through Medbay.”_ _

__“How’d that even happen, sir?” Ink asked, managing half of an actual smile. “Not that Moti hasn’t been cramming for that test since he was decanted…”_ _

__Dral crossed his arms over his chest and slouched a little further against the wall. He shook his head._ _

__“It’s done, and it’ll hold up,” Cody said. “Just make sure no one forgets and calls him ‘sergeant.’” He swallowed. “Keep Kahdah distracted and his men out of the loop, but make sure Triage can get them to surgery.”_ _

__There would be no more ‘incidents’ in Engineering or the Armory. He glanced down at Twenty-Three, still sedated. And no more desperate shinies._ _

__“Yes, sir,” Moti said, and Cody nodded._ _

__“We’ll make sure everybody keeps their heads,” Dral said. He waggled his helmet from side to side. “I mean…”_ _

__Juri snickered. Boil groaned. “Somebody shut his mic off before he tries again.”_ _

__“I don’t suppose you want to make me and Dral admirals before you go, sir?” Ink asked. “It couldn’t hurt.”_ _

__Moti chuckle-hiccupped. Cody shook his head. It’d almost been like he was a shiny again, slicing his batchmates’ liberty cards to reset the lockout clocks. Of course, slicing the GAR network was easier now that he had Obi-Wan’s override codes, but covering his tracks while dragging the servers for post-[Order 66] reports with the 501st’s pull-out looming had been a Hutt’s deadline._ _

__Triage pushed the stretcher towards the front of the supply bay, forcing Snag and Ink to move to opposite sides. Twenty-Three tossed his head, mumbling from beneath the large bacta pad covering the lower half of his face._ _

__“He should be out for hours,” Triage said, glancing over his shoulder. “We pumped him full of Sterinade.”_ _

__Cody picked up Obi-Wan’s pack and slung it over his right shoulder. It hung lower than before, stuffed with the extras he’d scrounged. He squeezed his hand around the strap and cleared his throat._ _

__“Up and on me,” he said, and the men stood to attention. The air stilled around them, but Cody could hear the punch and scream of shuttle engines revving across the hangar level. Booted footsteps stamped along the corridor outside. “Snag?”_ _

__“It’s Shuttle E’tad, near the astromech’s recharging station,” Snag said, already kitted out in hash marks and a Bombardier’s missile stencils, blue from bucket to boots. “I got my friend in the Wrench Jockeys—”_ _

__Moti cleared his throat._ _

__“Uh,” Snag tugged on the bottom of his helmet. “Gaff says she’ll be in Docking Bay 38L, scheduled for the second to last lift off before the _Vigilance_ rejoins the 212th. No problems, no questions, and…uh, he wanted to say they’ve got our backs. Vod’ad hukaat'kama. Sir.”_ _

__Cody paused. Snag shifted his Deece from his left to his right. Cody’s breath grew louder in his ears for a moment, before he re-centered himself. At this rate, he’d be a better [traitor] than Obi-Wan with all the karking meditation. He nodded once and cleared his throat._ _

__“Good job,” he said. “Remember, walk slowly. Keep pace with the stretcher. All we have to do is board the shuttle and hype out on Dispatch’s mark. We’re…” he swallowed. “We’re just following orders.”_ _

__A hot, bright knot of pain pushed high against his temple, making his eyelids twitch. Juri’s head waggled back and forth, even though the rest of him was perfectly still. Cody closed his eyes briefly. He heard the men shifting on their feet, resettling their borrowed equipment. It would be stolen equipment as soon as he keyed in the coordinates to rendezvous with Rex and not the 212th. His head pounded. Cody opened his eyes._ _

__“We’re good soldiers,” he said. “We’ve beat back everything the enemy’s thrown at us and some osik nobody ever saw coming. Our brothers need us, our… _leaders_ trusted us, and it’s up to us now to make this right. Are you ready?”_ _

__“Oya, sir,” Dral said, snapping to attention in his grey and yellow. “We won’t let you down.”_ _

__“We’ll have every karking chip out of our men,” Triage said._ _

__“Horizon’s clear,” Juri said looking out into the corridor. He raised his hand. “Now or never.”_ _

__“Move out,” Cody said. “And may the Force be with us.”_ _

__Moti, Ink, and then Dral left first to avoid suspicion; next, Cody waved the rest of the men out. They kept pace with the stretcher, while Cody rode their six just behind Triage. He wanted to say something as they crossed from the machinists’ bays to the hangar floor. A head dipped as they passed, the barest sketch of a salute before the mechanic was jogging off with a clipboard and a bundle of coiled cable. Cody’s jaw ached. He was abandoning his men, leaving them to face the enemy at the helm and on the planet. He swallowed hard against the rock lodged in his throat and kept moving._ _

__Obi-Wan needed him. The only way he’d find the person who’d done this to their men would be to find his [traitor] and help him take down the karking sack of osik responsible for betraying them all, and if it was…if Rex was right and it wasn’t the Chancellor, then the Chancellor was in danger, too. Cody had sworn his oath to the Republic every day until he’d been assigned off Kamino, and he wasn’t going to betray that now. He rested his hand on the butt of Obi-Wan’s reassembled WESTAR-34 pistol and tucked his arm against the blaster hole in his armor._ _

__The lower hangar was bustling with movement; the bodies had been cleared away, and most of the debris had been pushed off to make space for the outgoing personnel. Triage, head bent over the diagnostic panel, steered the stretcher towards the back of the mass of 501st troops._ _

__“There is no emotion, there is peace,” Rivet muttered over private comms. “Karking _osik_.”_ _

__“Cut the chatter,” Snag said._ _

__Cody made himself breathe calmly, counting each inhalation and holding it for a beat before exhaling. Triage sped up as they detached from the main group and made their way to their waiting shuttle. Cody stepped on the back of his heel._ _

__“No rush,” he muttered, glancing around. “Keep it together.”_ _

__Triage stumbled, but nodded. His pace slowed. They neared the shuttle’s ramp, and Trip-Sevens took Triage’s place. Their hands brushed as Triage let go of the push bar. The men walked up into the shuttle without pausing or looking back. Cody tightened his grip on the pistol. He swallowed as he stepped up the ramp._ _

__“Good luck,” Triage whispered as he passed._ _

__He nodded just as he entered the shuttle and hit the button to retract the ramp and close the blast doors. Trip-Sevens had already magnetized Twenty-Three’s stretcher to the floor at the far side of the hold. Rivet’s helmet was off and the red articulated crosses on his cheeks shone wetly with sweat. He sat in the medic’s chair, transferring the stretcher’s sensor input to the shuttle’s memory banks._ _

__Cody walked to the pilot’s seat, patting Juri’s shoulder as he passed the navigator’s console. He sat down in the chair and opened the comm channel to Dispatch. Snag was already sitting at the co-pilot’s station, strapping in._ _

__“Shuttle E’tad, this is _Vigilance_. Dispatch code zero-three-niner, do you copy?” Sergeant Tychon asked._ _

__Cody swallowed and licked his lips. He looked over his shoulder. Rivet stared back at him, already strapped in next to Trip-Sevens. His palms were open on his knees, breathing as close to regular as the fine tremors in his body allowed. Cody turned back and gestured at the comm speaker. If he, of all people, spoke up, the plan was dead before they’d lifted off. Snag cleared his throat._ _

__“Copy, Dispatch, this is Shuttle E’tad,” Snag said, pitching his voice with that weird lilt the 501st had picked up somewhere. “We are a full tank, ready for liftoff at your mark.”_ _

__“Roger that, Shuttle E’tad, you are cleared for 4th lift off,” Tychon said, and all the muscles in Cody’s back seized and went numb. “ETA three minutes, mark.”_ _

__“Mark,” Snag said, and clicked off the comm channel._ _

__Cody ran the preflight check in a daze, feeling like every breath was someone else’s idea. This was it. He was actually doing this. He hadn’t disobeyed an order this big in—in—he’d never taken this kind of risk before. He’d never jumped off this big a cliff. He typed in the coordinates Rex had transmitted, setting a course that would take them out with the rest of the 501st and detach just at the jump to hyperspace._ _

__“Juri, start ripping out the transponders as soon as we’ve jumped,” he said, and placed his hands at the controls. “I don’t want anyone tracking us.”_ _

__“Yes sir,” Juri said quietly._ _

__The depressurizing alarm rang out over the hangar, signaling all crews to police their helmets. Cody looked out the front viewport as the outboard shield flashed green and lowered its frequency to permit lift off. Engines fired around them, and Cody brought E’tad’s thrusters online. The first wave went out, angling past the hangar doors for open space. At the signal from Dispatch, Shuttle E’tad lifted off. Cody leaned over the flight controls, keeping the shuttle at the back end of the pack, but not too far away. The _Vigilance_ ’s signal ping on the shuttle’s sensor grew smaller._ _

__He reached over to the hyperspace control panel and gripped the lever. Ahead of them in the viewport, a cascading wave of shuttles spread out and shot forward, engines flaring as they jumped._ _

__“Brace yourselves,” he said, angling the shuttle 30 degrees below the 501st’s hyperspace mark. A nearby shuttle pinged them on comms; Snag silenced the channel. Cody shifted the lever to .4 and fired the engines._ _

__He rocked back in his chair, planting his feet for stability. The stars froze in front of them, then shuddered into a billion shining trails as the shuttle leapt forward, engines roaring hot towards Rex’s coordinates._ _

__Towards Obi-Wan._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mandalorian translations:
> 
> Ba'Vodu: [BAH-vohd-ooh] Uncle
> 
> Di' kut/di'kutla: [Dee-koot/Dee-koot-la] Idiot/idiotic
> 
> Hut'uunla skanah: [Hutt-oon-la SKAH-nah] (lit.) Cowardly much hated thing/person. (fig.) Cowardly asshole.
> 
> Ni vore ash'ad baarpir: [Nee vohr ASH-add bar-peer] (lit.) I accept someone else's sweat. (fig.) I gain from someone else's work.
> 
> Shuttle E'tad: [SH-uhtt-ul Ee-tahd] Shuttle Seven
> 
> Vod’ad hukaat'kama: [Vohd-add HU-kaht-kahma] Your brother(s) have your back.
> 
> (nb: Many Mandalorian sayings can be translated as singular or plural depending on context. The apostrophe or beten is often used to separate from the terminal vowel, as signifier of pronunciation, taking a breath, or an indication of dialect.)


	4. Chapter 4

Cody sat back in the pilot's chair and stared out at the purple and brown planet taking up a full quarter length of the front viewport. Nglitzkah, according to the navicomputer. Back when he’d been a shiny, the officers had called it ‘Trattok'o’ for the number of ships it destroyed while they were looking for a stop to vent ship-heat and a quick refueling. Now, it was just another uninhabited high gravity swamp planet with three kriffing moons and zero karking Rex. Had he waited and moved on? He'd sent the coordinates, but maybe Cody had waited too long. Maybe they should have just followed the 501st's flotilla back to Triple Zero, and met up with Rex some other way. 

He took off his helmet and set it down on the small left-hand side shelf inset beneath the piloting console. A huge brown cloud bank swirled in front of him. He took a deep breath and kept his head up, squinting a little. His throat hurt. There'd been nothing on the scanner since they’d arrived, and nothing but static the one time Cody risked hailing Rex on his private frequency again.

"Coming up on the second moonrise now, Commander," Snag said.

Cody stiffened and swallowed hard. He nodded. "Take the shuttle into a higher orbit," he said. "I don't want to get caught in between those gravity wells."

He slid out of the pilot’s chair, both hands on the armrests. He turned on his heel and faced the back of the cabin. The men didn’t look up. Five kriffing hours in a short range landing shuttle through hyperspace was too much time to think and they’d missed the Hour of Remembrance on the _Vigilance_. Juri and Snag could keep a beat for the 212th's funeral song and the Litany, but it wasn’t the same without the rest of the Two-Twelve surrounding them. When Twenty-Three started moaning half-way down the hyperspace corridor, Rivet soothed him back down with a few verses of The Trooper's Farewell. They'd spent the rest of the journey mostly in silence, playing card games with the pack Boil tossed down from the gunner's port. 

"Where are we anyway, sir?" Juri asked, tossing one of the broken transponders from his left to right hand. He scratched underneath his chin with a scraggly piece of wire.

“They call it ‘Tratttok’o,’" Cody said. "Because of all the ships they lost looking for a short cut. There used to be a way station here to warn 'em away."

The deck plates vibrated beneath his feet as Snag fired the thrusters. He grabbed the back of his chair and glanced over his shoulder to see the horizon veer to open space. He rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand as he turned around. He'd popped another Pexereca tab before Rivet had confiscated them, and now his entire body throbbed like a day old bruise, painful, but manageable. He stepped over the painted yellow line marking cockpit from the crew area of the shuttle. In the far back, Rivet looked up from checking Twenty-Three's vitals through the stretcher bed's CPU. As soon as the shuttle had jumped, he'd been out of his chair to sit on the floor, legs folded underneath him and his knees spread in a v. Obi-Wan would have been impressed; most of the clones who'd taken the [traitors'] meditation classes could only manage to hold that pose for forty minutes. His nosebleeds seemed to have died down to a trickle. Above him, Trip-Sevens lay stretched over both seats, using his rifle for a pillow and snoring. The man really could sleep anywhere.

"I don’t see what’s so bad about it," Juri said. "We've fought on uglier planets."

Snag snorted. "A planet as big as this with three other slightly smaller karkers orbiting it? One of which has its own damn debris field?"

"Most of the wreckage gets dragged down onto the planet itself," Cody said. "This system has a nasty reputation for catching smugglers' vessels on their way to the private colonies. Jump the wrong vector and you've made your last karking run."

Juri nodded. He tossed the blackened transponder over his shoulder into the small pile they'd accumulated on the floor. Twenty-Three moaned, but settled. 

"Well, we've got a weeks' worth of food and two weeks of water," Juri said. "Snag's friend even came through on a brand new air scrubber. So who's up for another hand of Smuggler's Choice?"

He beat the back of his head lightly on his chair; his hair fell backwards from his forehead.

Cody crossed his arms over his cuirass. "It's only been an hour, Juri," he said. "We can afford to give them more time."

Juri lowered his head, took a deep breath, and nodded. Cody walked over and clapped him on the shoulder, bearing down so Juri could feel the pressure through his armor. Juri nodded again, smiling tightly. Trip-Sevens snored.

Cody let go and moved to the back of the shuttle. He looked up the ladder leading to the shuttle's only gun port and rapped his armored knuckles on the rim of the hatch. Boil turned around stiffly in the gunner's chair, helmet off. The gunner's headset hung crooked over his bandage.

"Nothing, sir," Boil said. His face was beaded with sweat. "Not even a ghost on the targeting computer."

Cody nodded. "Come down and give Juri a turn in the seat," he said, loudly enough for Juri to hear.

"I don't need to be relieved, sir," Boil said. His jaw flexed beneath his bacta bandage. "I've got another good hour in me."

Boil had been up there since they'd dropped out of the 501st's flotilla. He’d even made Rivet climb up and stand on the ladder to change his bandages. Cody jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

“I’m glad to hear it, sergeant,” he said. “Put that good hour to use at the navicomputer array.”

Boil’s mouth twisted briefly. His eyebrow lowered and the bacta bandage bulged around his jaw. "Sir," Boil said, finally. 

He turned around in his chair slowly, and Cody heard more than saw him unhook his helmet. He tore off the gunner's headset and stuffed his helmet on his head, scratching the blue chevron above his left eye. Cody stepped back from the ladder. He looked over at Juri, who was already standing. Juri put on his helmet with both hands.

Boil's boots smacked onto the first rung of the ladder as Cody walked over to Rivet and Twenty-Three's spot on the floor. Rivet opened his eyes, took a deep breath, and nodded to him. Cody crouched next to him and went to one knee. 

"Didn't know you could sing," Cody said, quietly.

He heard Boil’s feet hit the deck, and then Juri grunt as he climbed up. Rivet smiled and sniffled. He rubbed a tissue already dotted with blood under his nose. "It helps," he said. "You'd be surprised how useful it is sometimes."

"Had a batchmate who used to go to bed with his ordinance before battle," Cody said. "Nothing surprises me anymore."

Rivet chuckled. "Now that is a new one," he said. 

He leaned over Twenty-Three's stretcher to stick his tissue in the bio-refuse bin. The flap unsealed and resealed with a pop and a hiss. He pulled a clean tissue from his utility belt and held it wrapped around his fingers. His back was a straight frozen line, perfect posture. Cody glanced up above and behind his head. Trip-Sevens snored lightly, twitching. Twenty-Three whimpered and Cody looked down. His forehead was purpling into a curved bruise, running up into his hairline. The Sterinade still kept him unconscious, but his face was damp with sweat. Twenty-Three pulled against the safety straps holding him down. Rivet sighed. He reached out and laid his hand over Twenty-Three's right fist. 

"How is he?" he asked, nodding at Twenty-Three.

Rivet raised his eyebrows. "His pulse is higher than I'd like, but not dangerous. It's the nightmares I'm worried about. There's only so much I can do to keep him calm."

He tapped a blue button on the side of the stretcher; it beeped and flashed. Twenty-Three shook his head from side to side; his whimpers turned into muttering again.

Cody nodded. Everyone went to the medics for the nightmares eventually, and the result was always the same: a clone learned to handle them, or he didn’t. 

"Thought you medical types had outlawed downers."

Rivet shrugged. "He's got the maximum dose for a clone his weight, and I'm not upping it until the Sterinade’s entirely flushed out of his system. Besides, drugs aren't the only option. I have other ways."

He coughed quietly, and rubbed the side of his head. Cody shifted on his knee, putting his weight deeper into the guard's padding. He nodded.

"Like you _kicked_ the blaster out of Boil's hand?"

Rivet paused and placed both his hands on his knees. He breathed in, hollowing the crosses tattooed over both cheeks, and then exhaled. "I was just in the right place at the right time, sir," he said.

Rivet tended to be in the right place at the right time every time. Cody nodded. "I have some experience with that," he said.

Rivet bent his head. "No, sir," he said.

Cody raised his eyebrows. He pinched the bridge of his nose at a sudden thump of pain. It wasn't the best time, possibly the kriffing worst actually, but [Cody had to ask.] "Is that how—"

Rivet's hand touched Cody's knee guard. "There are no Force-sensitive clones, sir," he whispered.

Cody pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth and closed his eyes. Red light throbbed through his eyelids. He sat back on his heels and opened his eyes. Rivet watched him, breathing deeply and evenly.

"Tell me if his condition changes," Cody said.

Rivet nodded. "Yes, sir," he said.

Cody stood and sucked in a breath as his sense of balance wobbled. He put his hand out and caught himself on Rivet's shoulder. He shook his head, blinking rapidly.

"Commander?" 

Rivet began to rise up from his position, and Cody pushed him back down again. He straightened up and put both hands behind his back. He swallowed.

"Don't forget to take a break yourself, doc," he said. "Trip-Sevens can have his turn watching a sleeping man, too."

Rivet looked him over carefully, a full sweep that had Cody shuffling back onto his heels. "You're taking away all my fun, sir," he said.

Cody snorted. "If this is your idea of fun, then we need—"

"Commander," Snag called out. "We've got movement on the third moon."

"Isolate and identify," Cody said, head snapping towards the front of the shuttle. He hustled to the cockpit and fell into the pilot's chair. Snag had the shuttle's sensors up and running already. Cody hit the switch for the gunner's comms. "Look alive, Juri," he yelled.

"Calculating course," Boil said. "Navicomputer needs a minute."

Cody heard the rotors whine as Juri brought the railgun on line. The sensor screen flashed a deep blue and dissolved into fuzzy icons of the second and third moons. Cody held his hands at the controls and brought the thrusters online again. He pulled up the hyperdrive system as well, just in case.

"It's just here, sir," Snag said, typing one-handed on the radar's keypad. "Karking piece of stang gravity wells make every kriffing blasted thing harder; I couldn’t tell what was static and what was actual movement until it got this close. They must have jumped right into the third moon's shadow."

"Or they were here all along with their engines shut down," Trip-Sevens said behind them.

"Oh now he wakes up," Boil said. "Sir, if I'm reading this right whatever it is just plotted a course to intercept us in thirty."

“Buckle in.” Cody punched up the piloting controls, maneuvering the ship to skip above sixty degrees coreward. He eyed the sensor screen. It was definitely a ship; its course was too deliberate for a rogue asteroid or loose space debris. Cody leaned closer to the speaker. "Juri, I want you to lock target as soon as that blip gets in range, but hold your fire. This could be friendly."

"What if they fire first?" Juri asked. 

The shuttle vibrated as the gun port turret rotated into position. Cody squinted at the too-bright sensor screen. The radar had finally scanned enough data to make an approximate match.

"Then you can file a complaint with the review board after you return fire," Cody said. "Snag, ping the ship."

"Ba'Vodu would just laugh at me," Juri grumbled over the speakers.

"Sir, opening comms now," Snag said. "Um, what do I say?"

"Tell them the truth," Cody said. He rubbed his jaw. His eyesight blurred and then sharpened. There was no disguising this shuttle's markings. "We're a GAR shuttle separated from our flotilla and we wound up here."

Behind him, he heard Rivet start to hum The Trooper's Farewell again. Cody sighed. Did the numa-humper know any other songs? Snag cleared his throat.

"Unidentified ship, this is GAR Shuttle... _Sh'enn_ —" 

Cody grimaced. Oh, very subtle.

"—State your business in this system," Snag continued. "Repeat: Unidentified ship, this is GAR Shuttle _Sh'enn_. State your business in this system. You have plotted an intercept course."

"We're gonna die," Boil said.

"That's enough, Sergeant," Cody said, wincing as he twisted in his chair. “Concentrate on getting me an exit.”

Boil sighed deeply and briefly raised both hands in the air. Cody turned back around. On the screen, the blip had come close enough for the computer to identify its make. A CR-90 Correllian corvette, maneuverable and anonymous enough to be a smuggler's pride and joy, and with so many unidentifiable specs in the computer banks that it had to be heavily modified. It banked a little, and the computer reported that the serial numbers had been blasted off the hull. 

"Juri," Cody said.

“Uploading an escape route now, sir,” Boil said.

Cody’s hand hovered over the hyperspace levers. The corvette was faster than their shuttle, but they had maneuverability on their side as long as those heavy engines weren’t already running hot. The outboard comms buzzed with static, and Snag closed his mouth. 

"Shuttle... _Sh'enn_ ," this is _Arrow's Compass_ ," Rex said with that karking beautiful 501st lilt to his voice. "Nice of you to join us."

Cody crossed his arms over his cuirass and clenched his hands over his elbows. The entire shuttle breathed out as one. Snag flopped back against his chair and tilted his head upwards. Cody heard Juri giggle like a gundark on stims.

"Rex, you no good son of a Hutt, where the hell have you been?" Cody asked. 

"You talk about my decanting tube with respect," Rex said. "We just needed some time to prepare. You all right in there?"

Cody didn't glance behind him. "More or less in one piece," he said. "There room on that thing for all of us?"

"And whatever you brought with you," Rex said. "You just gonna sit there and make us come to you?"

Cody sighed and then coughed. He leaned back and pointed at Boil. "Plot me an intercept," he said, and turned back around. "Keep to your course, Rex," he said. "Our shuttle will meet you in the middle."

 

***

 

He should have known he'd end up like this. Cody raised his arms in the air, staring over the barrel of the DC-15S Kix had pointed at his head. He risked a glance back at his men to make sure no one had any di'kutla ideas, and then took a step forward. The four-man squad of 501st clones wavered, but held their positions. Those that weren’t helmeted were bald, with bacta patches covering the right side of their skulls. Kix's carbine brushed Cody's chin plate.

"I suppose there's a reason for this?" Cody asked, looking up at the walkway stretched across the back of the hold. His LD visor zoomed in and then out again quickly enough to make his throat clench. He swallowed heavily.

"This ship has precious cargo," Rex said, nodding at him. "I need to make sure nothing happens to it."

He'd shaved himself completely bald since they'd last met in person, and there were heavy bags under his eyes, a few new scars. His armor had the same thick blue stripes across his pauldron and down either arm; his brown kama with its blue anti-blast lining was strapped low on his hips. Cody could even see the hash marks carved into the sides of his white chest plates. 

Cody tensed; he tilted his chin. "Oh yeah?" he asked.

A 501st trooper with a bushy beard stepped down from where the walkway led to the hold, and activated a mobile gun rack. The rack levitated at his side as the trooper came forward. Half of Rex’s men began searching them for weapons. Cody spread his arms and let Kix take his WE-STAR 37 and the blaster slung along his back. He let him take Obi-Wan’s pack. Kix looked at him, lips pursed. He raised his eyebrows, wrinkling the script of his head tattoo. It looked strange without the lightning bolts that usually framed it. 

“Commander?” Kix asked.

“That’s me,” Cody said.

Kix handed the weaponry off to the man with the rack and changed places with another one -- Vapor, Cody thought his name was. The sniper from Torrent Company. 

"You need help with that stretcher, brother?" Kix asked, moving to where Rivet stood at the back of the group with Twenty-Three.

"I'll tell you if your friend there gives me back my medical bag," Rivet said.

"Ah, share mine," Kix said. 

"What kind of cargo?" Cody asked, raising his voice over the medics. Rex had been running some kind of special op for far longer than normal. Cody took in the hold. It wasn't much to look at, a bare metal holding tank with stacked bins that probably held food and spare parts, an exercise rack off to one side, and a few empty areas marked off by flash-tape. Six bodies lay stretched side by side in bags near the back of the hold, closest to the outer airlock. Cody frowned.

Rex straightened up from where he leaned on the walkway's railing. "Well, for one thing, I've got seven more men in the Five-Oh-One than I thought I had," he said.

Cody rolled his eyes and wished he hadn't. He felt his face heat. He took a deep breath. Vapor's carbine moved a hair's breadth away.

“We slipped out when your strays were recalled to Triple Zero,” he said. “Apparently, anybody can wear blue armor and walk right off with a shuttle.”

“Aren’t we lucky,” Rex said, and clapped his hands back on the guardrail. “Come on. Vapor and Eighty-One will start offloading your supplies.”

The three other brothers guarding them backed up and spread to either side of Cody’s group. Cody nodded at the clone nearest to him, broad enough to be wearing katarn armor and humping a T-21 at his side. 

“Welcome aboard,” the clone said. He had a raspy voice, like he’d taken smoke damage. “Commander.”

Cody led the way, underneath the walkway and through a heavily armored airlock door off into a stark white corridor with black deck plates. The luma panels overhead operated at full strength.

“Optics, down 10 percent,” he muttered, and squinted until his helmet’s HUD processed the order. His optic ports dimmed, and Cody took a slow breath. His gut cramped. He walked onward, hearing the shift of weaponry against armor at his back. The men were silent except for Rivet and Kix speaking quietly in the back.

The corridor branched off to his right and left, leaving a short length of decking leading up to an elevator unit. The second door on his left opened with a hiss of atmosphere, and Cody dropped his hand to his empty holster.

Rex stepped out of the doorway, holding up his hands. “Sorry about all this osik,” he said, looking from Cody to his men and back again. “I know it’s not exactly the welcome party you were expecting.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Cody said. “I’m thinking you’re taking us directly to the medbay level, right?”

The medics stopped talking, letting silence fall. Rex snorted. He moved to Cody’s side and began walking. “We’ve had the operating tables prepped since I sent you those coordinates,” he said.

“High-handed son of a [traitor],” Cody muttered, and Rex paused mid-stride. He shook his head and kept walking. Cody glanced over his shoulder, jerked his head, and followed. “How many beds?” Cody asked.

“Three,” Rex said. “We’ve got an Em-Dee upgrading on standby to assist Kix with the operations. They’re not quick, but they’re easy.”

“I’ll go last, sir,” Rivet said. “That way I can observe Sergeant Kix in theater. Help him out.”

“I’m going last,” Cody said, glancing over his shoulder as Rex hit the call button for the elevator. He swallowed, put his hands behind his back, and swallowed again. His stomach clenched. “If Twenty-Three can take it, he, Juri, and Boil are up first. Then you, Trip-Sevens, and Snag. Then me.”

“We can clear you first, sir,” Kix said.

“I am aware,” Cody said. He closed his eyes and fought the urge to sway. It was hot and his stolen armor weighed more than he’d originally thought.

“The commander and I have operational matters to discuss,” Rex said without looking at him. 

The elevator doors opened, and Cody stepped aside to let the men file on first. Rex did the same; he tapped his chin with two fingers. Cody lifted his chin and straightened his back from its slouch. Finally, Rivet pushed the stretcher inside the carriage and stood at the end.

“We’ll catch the next one,” Rex said. 

“Yes sir,” Kix said from somewhere inside the elevator. 

The elevator door curved closed, and the light above the threshold blinked twice from green to orange. Cody took a deep breath.

“Take off your bucket,” Rex said. “I don’t know who I’m looking at here.”

“It’s my helmet,” Cody said. “We just repainted.”

“I got that from the blue thumbprints down your medic’s annunciator,” Rex said. He crossed arms. “You sound like you’ve been gargling Gungans.”

Cody clenched his jaw. “I’m fine,” he said. “Nothing a little slice and dice won’t cure. Have you been able to narrow down where the [Trai—] where Kenobi might have gone?”

He licked his teeth inside his mouth. He’d made it a point to never refer to Obi-Wan by anything less than his title in the field; their personal lives were not their work. The blasted bio-chip wasn’t taking that, too. His chest tightened. Rex frowned.

Cody sighed. He lifted off his helmet with both hands, and held it at his side under his right arm. He squinted. The air felt a little cooler against his skin; it was nice.

Rex’s lips parted, mouth going soft; his brown eyes widened. “Brother…” he said.

Cody clenched his hand around the lip of his helmet. “It’s not as bad as it might look. You know I hate shuttles.”

“You worm-eating _liar_.” 

Rex cupped his palm around the back of Cody’s head and suddenly Cody could feel the sweat melting his hair to his skull, probably dripping down Rex’s gauntlet now. He stumbled when Rex pulled him closer and dropped his helmet. He winced at the clatter it made against the deck, and then Rex’s other arm was around his back, pressing hard so he could feel it through the armor.

Cody let his forehead touch the segmented plates of Rex’s pauldron. He breathed in and wrapped both arms around Rex’s waist. He could hear his gauntlets tapping against Rex’s armor in bursts and clenched his hands into fists to make them stop. 

“Brother, I am so glad you came,” Rex said.

“Do you know—we could try Vohai,” Cody said, and turned his head to the side. “We—the Republic never goes there, we could set up a sweep near the TR jump off and then… Once the men are out of surgery, we can coordinate our searching, take the shuttle if possible and—”

Rex’s arm tightened and Cody cut himself off. Cody shut his eyes, and breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, throat aching. Rex squeezed the back of his head with his gauntlet. 

“We’re going to make this right,” he said.

Cody nodded.

 

***

 

In the elevator, they leaned on each other like it was their first day of live-fire exercises all over again, just him and Rex and the bone-deep ache of bodies running on bad food and no sleep. Cody followed Rex out of the mid-ship elevator and onto the side corridor that wrapped around the medbay, one level up from the cargo hold and stretched between two elevator shafts. He’d put his helmet back on during the ride up; seemed like a better idea than looking Rex in eyes. Through the windows set from ceiling to waist-high into the medbay’s walls, he could see Twenty-Three already laid down on one of the three operating tables. Kix and Rivet stood talking at the doorway of a closed off area.

“Looks like you have room for more than three beds. Expecting a high casualty rate?” Cody asked. He cleared his throat.

Rex shook his head. “The _Arrow’s Compass_ can convert to a triage station fairly quickly, but most of the space around the medbay is storage and cargo. She’s built to fly fast, unload quick, and blast anyone unlucky enough to get in her way. ”

Cody nodded. “What were you unloading?”

Rex huffed. He grinned, lips pressed tightly to his teeth. “Tell you later.”

Through the transparisteel walls, Cody saw Juri and Boil in the middle of stripping off their armor. Juri raised his hand, and then returned to helping Boil unlatch his cuirass. Cody nodded. Trip-Sevens and Snag looked like they were playing Sabaac in the far corner. Rex’s men were standing watch in the corridor on the other side.

“You sure this will work?” Cody asked, keeping his eyes on the men. 

Rex put his hand on Cody’s shoulder. “It worked for me, once the fuss died down.” 

Cody waggled his helmet. “Fuss,” he muttered.

“Not that it mattered much,” Rex continued as if Cody hadn’t spoken. “We were able to contain the problem fairly quickly.”

Cody stopped walking. In his mind’s eye, he saw Obi-Wan falling, a small dark shape next to his varactyl, writhing for a handhold in mid-air. He shook his head sharply. “Kind of karking easy when you don’t have a [traitor] in your sights, isn’t it?” 

Rex let his hand fall. His newest scar was a thin indented line high up on his scalp, still shiny with bacta and wound-gum. It had to be where _it_ was, or had been. Cody curled his hands into fists to keep from touching that spot on his helmet.

“You sure you don’t want Kix to check you out before we get into this?” Rex asked.

“We’re already losing time as it is,” Cody said. “Debrief me and then I’ll have Kix tell me everything Rivet told me already all over again.”

“All right,” Rex said. He tapped his wrist comm and brought it up to his mouth. “Vapor, you done with the unloading?”

“Yes, sir,” Vapor responded.

“Prep the shuttle for detachment. Set a course between the second and first moons. That should be enough to scrap it.”

Cody glanced over his shoulder through the clear windows, and then turned so his back was to the medbay. “Wait a minute, that’s Republic property!”

Rex shrugged. “One ship, one search. Trust me, we’ve got everything we need on the _Compass_.”

“Really,” Cody said, crossing his arms.

“Come on,” Rex said. “Follow me down to the briefing room. I’ll explain there.”

He tapped out of comms and raised three fingers in the air, curled them into his palm, and then raised them again towards the windows of the medbay. Cody turned around to see one of the 501st, a trooper with blue pauldrons, tap the side of his helmet. 

“Who’s that?” he asked.

“Zeer,” Rex said. “My combat engineer.”

Cody nodded. “From Teth, right? Lucky karking bastard.”

“Don’t tell him that, he’s superstitious.”

Cody knocked on the glass. Trip-Sevens looked up at the sharp rapping. He saluted and Cody saw a flash of what might have been a vibroscalpel handle in his palm. He returned the salute.

He walked next to Rex as they neared the other elevator, dragging his fingers along the side of the ship’s walls; his gauntlets clicked against the rivets. He narrowed his eyes, concentrating on keeping his steps in line as they walked. Rex pushed the button for the elevator.

“Your man doesn’t need the knife, you know,” he said as the door opened.

“It makes him feel better,” Cody said. They stepped into the carriage.

Rex pushed the down button as the doors closed. Cody looked over at him.

“Well?” he asked.

Rex sighed. He looked down at the floor, and then shifted his attention to his utility belt; he opened up the large pouch on his hip. He pulled a specimen slide out, pinched between two fingers, and held it up to the overhead light. Cody squinted upwards, and put his hands against the wall for balance. The elevator shuttled downwards.

“It’s fuzzy,” he said, and squinted to bring his HUD’s magnification reset online.

“It’s fused,” Rex said. “Kix tells me it has been for a while now.”

He lowered the specimen slide between their bodies, and drew his upper lip back over his teeth. Cody reached out and touched the top of the slide; his thumb obscured the entire chip from view. He bit his lip.

“When the order came through…it didn’t work for me and about half my crew,” Rex said. 

“What? How?” Cody asked, dropping his hand from the slide. “You got it deactivated and you never told me?”

“I didn’t know!” Rex snapped, stuffing the chip back into his side pouch. “After Fives died, I wasn’t…in a good place. I kept trying to concentrate on our orders, and wound up…well, you know how I wound up.”

Cody nodded. “Yeah,” he said.

Rex frowned and sucked in his cheeks. Of all his brothers, Cody thought Rex’s cheekbones were the most pronounced. When they’d been kids, they’d gotten him sent to Reevaluation once as a possible deviation. 

Rex put his hands on his blasters and stood straighter. “When General Skywalker finally dragged me out of the bar it was too late to do anything about it on liberty. I had to wait until I got command of the _Compass_.”

[Traitor] Skywalker. _[Trai]ener[tor]_ Skywalker. Cody stretched his neck from left to right. He just had to keep concentrating; he’d have the chip beaten soon, one way or the other. 

“So you had it removed just in case? Half the crew were already clear?” 

Rex paused, just the slightest hitch in his breathing. “Yeah,” he said finally.

“So why’s it fused?” Cody asked, and leaned forward.

“My best guess is because back in the early days of the war, the Republic in its wisdom dropped an electro-proton bomb the size of an Aurean vulture on the 501st on Malastare in the hopes of taking a few clankers with us when our kriffing laarties fell out of the sky,” Rex said. His thick eyebrows lowered. 

Cody clenched his jaw. “I remember that. Take out the Seppies with an EMP, and it was all over but the scavenging, they said.”

Rex shrugged and cleared his throat. “If they’d tried to aim the thing better, I would have been first to press the button. It worked great, took out every piece of equipment we or they fielded in a 200 klick radius, if you didn’t care about the earthquakes.”

The elevator doors opened. Rex stepped out first and lead the way down another blank white corridor. A trooper knelt at the far end in front of an opened panel. Cody smelled hot plasma and saw an open tool box with burnt wires twisting out of one end. He walked out and moved aside for a floor droid as it skittered past his feet into the elevator. 

“So it was as early as that?” he asked. “The entire Battalion could have disobeyed?”

Rex shook his head. “You know our casualty rates, same as I know yours. If any of the brothers on Malastare were fused like me, it didn’t make a difference for long.”

Cody nodded. “Still, that’s…that’s…”

Rex snorted and shook his head. “Yeah.”

They walked further along the gently inclining corridor. Rex was walking more slowly than normal. Cody gritted his teeth and upped his speed. He was fine; he’d had all the rest he needed on the shuttle. The deck plating shuddered and dipped beneath his feet.

Rex grabbed Cody’s elbow. “Whoa!”

Cody let Rex hold his arm up and bent his knees, planting his feet. Rex leaned his free arm against the wall and the trooper grabbed his tool box. Rex’s comm beeped. Cody jerked his elbow out of Rex’s grip. 

“I think you just jettisoned my ship,” he said, and pointed at one of three white metal doors on either side of the corridor. “Which one’s the wardroom?”

“Briefing room’s the first door on the right,” Rex said. He lifted his wrist up to his mouth. “Go on, I’ll catch up.”

Cody nodded. He kept his hands loose at his sides as he skirted around the kneeling trooper. He glanced at the panel; looked like a coolant tube needed replacing. The right hand door opened with a hiss and wobbled slightly as it slid into the wall. Cody stepped over the threshold as the overhead lights came on.

The communications table in the center of the room was smaller than the one aboard the _Vigilance_ , but it did have a hologram of the starscape outside the ship projected against the far wall. Cody walked towards it. He tapped the back of the chair in front of one of the table’s inset computers. Probably wasn’t worth it to try his code key right now. If Rex was as off-grid as he seemed to be, the computer might not even recognize Republic codes that didn’t belong to him. 

He scratched his neck just under his helmet, and pressed two fingers to his pulse. His onboard vitals readout said he was within normal parameters, but it felt like he was shaking, almost hollow. He focused on the stars in the projection. This was it; he could feel it. He closed his right eye as pressure built up in his forehead. This system wasn’t close to anything but neutral colonies and manufacturing worlds, but they were just the sort of places that wouldn’t ask questions about a man refueling a short-range shuttle. Obi-Wan would have to stop at least once before he made the run to Coruscant and they’d be right on his afterburners. 

The deck vibrated beneath his feet, probably altering course. The _Arrow’s Compass_ had quality dampeners, but he’d been in space long enough to be able to notice. Cody licked his lips. There’d been bodies in Rex’s hold. Six brothers in bags, but the corridors he’d been led down didn’t show any signs of a fight. Cody closed his other eye and breathed in sharply. He took off his helmet and pressed the heel of his left hand against his forehead. _Fierfek_ , the sooner he got the karking brain-tick out of his head the better. 

Six bodies in the hold, though. Cody frowned, and opened his eyes a crack. The door hissed behind him. He turned around, pulling himself into parade rest; he could hold that position with a sucking chest wound.

“We’re leaving the system,” Rex said, walking forward. “We’ll make the jump to hyperspace once Del’s certain these gravity wells won’t twist our navicomputer into chizk.” 

The door closed. Cody tightened his grip on his helmet. “Del’s your pilot, huh?”

Rex shrugged. He sighed. “He’s rated for it, yeah. My first choice is in the hold.”

Cody looked away. “The bodies,” he said. Rex must have gotten the call almost as soon as he had.

“Yeah,” Rex said. He ducked his head to his breastplate and bit his lip. “We were near Utapau, actually.” 

Cody moved closer. “What were you doing this far into the Outer Rim front?”

“My mission didn’t have a stable AO,” Rex said. “We were mostly following the smaller trade routes, setting up a presence in neutral territories.”

“Nothing’s neutral out here,” Cody said. He squinted. Rex’s armor was reflecting the light, outlining him with a faint glow.

“Don’t I know it,” Rex said. “We need to get you and your men some better-fitting armor. If you don’t mind wearing our spares, we’ve got enough to go around. Lights, lower thirty percent.”

He said it so matter-of-factly that Cody almost didn’t catch it. The lights dimmed. Cody’s shoulders went back. He opened his eyes wider.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“I’m getting a headache,” Rex said. “Be nice to an old man.”

“You’re only two days older than me.”

Rex shrugged. Cody rolled his eyes. He opened his mouth and Rex raised his eyebrows. Cody popped his jaw. There was no point in raising the light levels; Rex would only lower them again. Rex crossed his arms over his chest. Now that it was darker, he could see that the blue two-way comm channel was lit on Rex’s wrist comm.

“So what’s our plan?” Cody asked, tilting his head. “Do we start at Vohai, or work our way spinward? [Trai—] Kenobi stole a fast ship. He must have hyped out of any nearby system by now.”

Rex shook his head. “Spinward’s out,” he said. “The General—” 

Cody flinched. Rex could say it. 

Rex's mouth tightened and he cleared his throat. “The General,” he repeated, voice softening. “Wouldn’t waste time going the long way around, especially with the backlash this stang-storm kicked up. We’ve been operating on the assumption that any…Jedi making their way back to Coruscant from the Outer Rim would go for the Mid-Rim smuggler’s routes, maybe even one of the refugee resettlement colonies. They don’t ask too many questions once we’ve pulled out of those places.”

Cody’s mouth dried out. He swallowed, but it felt like he was shoving cotton down his throat. He took a step closer to Rex; they were a foot further than arm’s length apart.

“Backlash?” he said. “What do you mean? No one had time to prepare once the [Order 66] came over the comm. The reports never listed a counteroffensive.”

Rex shook his head quickly. “Do you know your voice changes on certain words?” he asked. 

Cody jerked his shoulders up and down. “No,” he said. “Have the [Traitors] managed to regroup? I thought— Are there enough left?”

“No,” Rex said a little too loudly. “No, I just meant…he could probably feel it. In the Force. He had to have felt the Temple attack at least, and you know how they get after a battle.”

Cody stared at him; a cold spot spiraled out in icy tendrils in his stomach. Obi-Wan didn’t sleep after a fight, he meditated or he exercised or he helped Tan-Oshi until Cody tricked him into leaving. He wanted to be touched, but had to be made to keep still. He’d only just stopped pretending he wanted to be alone.

He could see it, the lists falling down from the ceiling with the weight of all the dead’s names; clones forced to hunt their [traitors] under fire from the clankers, mowed down by lightsabers and droidekas alike. [Traitors] led into the killing ground like sea-mice in a net. Cody's breath came faster, and he readjusted his grip on his helmet. Rex had six corpses in his hold. 

“So you think he’s hurting,” he said. He cleared his tightening throat.

Rex leaned back on his heels. Cody scanned him up and down, and just stopped himself from looking towards the closed door. If Rex had been running a special op in the Outer Rim with only his company, then why—when the [Order 66] transmitted, how…? No.

“I think he’s probably doing as well as we are,” Rex said, shifting the corner of his lips up and dropping them almost immediately. “But we’ve got a good idea where he might be, and the sooner we’ve got you all through surgery, the better for when we meet up again.”

“A good idea,” Cody repeated.

Rex nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “My navigator’s plotted the three most likely coordinates based …”

A thin hard line of pressure slipped across his mind, like the dulled edge of a knife, and Rex’s voice faded away. Cody’s eyes widened. His breath stopped. The pressure backed off as if startled, and then returned, watchful.

_[Traitor.]_

Cody swung, smacking his helmet into the side of Rex’s head with meaty thud. Rex yelled, falling back, and Cody barreled forward, dropping his helmet. He was here, his [traitor] was onboard. Rex [was hiding him from him.] 

“Echuta!” Rex shouted, and slammed his foot into Cody’s knee.

Cody fell sideways. He caught himself on the comm table, and scrambled for the door, kicking out behind him. Rex’s body fell on his legs, and Cody twisted. He straightened his arm, backhanding Rex as he landed on top of the [traitor stopping him from killing] his [traitor.] Cody had [to kill] him. Obi-Wan knew that.

Cody felt his lips pull back from his teeth as he opened his mouth. Rex grabbed him by the shoulder with his left arm and punched low with his right, pounding Cody right where the blaster had burned holes in the body armor. He heard it splinter and groaned. 

“You karking [traitor],” Cody said, spitting. He braced on Rex’s chest plate, hands slipping up to his throat, and squeezed. “ _[Traitor.]_ ”

“Not…yet!” 

Rex’s right speared up from his side, palm flat, and caught Cody on the chin. Cody reared backwards and grabbed Rex’s arm by the wrist. He twisted Rex’s hand back and punched his forearm out of the way. Rex yelled and the door opened. Cody looked up just as Rex brought his leg up and kicked him in the chest.

Cody rolled backwards, let the momentum push him back to his feet, and raced around the opposite side of the table. His eyes burned. His head throbbed with pain. The trooper in the door froze; Cody slammed into him at full-speed, sending them crashing through into the corridor.

“Look out, he’s loose!” he heard Rex yell, and then Cody was back on his feet, stamping on the trooper’s flailing arm. Another [traitor.]

The door hissed closed. The trooper was unarmed. He saw the tool box on its side, contents spilled on the floor. An electrotorch lay near his feet; a weapon was a weapon. The trooper kicked it out of the way, rising up to punch him in the side. 

“Commander, no!” the trooper yelled.

A searing electric jolt of pain ripped through Cody’s head, spiraling down his neck to his chest. He fell forward across the trooper and scrambled to get clear, scraping his armor joints across the deck. He had to get up, had [to kill] Obi-Wan. Light flashed in his eyes. He clenched his jaw together and felt the nip of his teeth on his tongue. The taste of blood filled his mouth. 

He flipped onto his back and then his feet. The trooper was sitting on the deck with the electrotorch in both hands. Cody tilted his head.

The trooper lit the torch and held it out in front of him. The door slid open, and Rex stepped out, blasters drawn. Cody’s head lowered. He tensed, closing his hands into fists. One on the ground, one standing, three feet away. The pressure in his mind was gone, but the [traitor] wasn’t. He could feel it. He knew it. His chest heaved, the armor creaked where Rex had beaten the blaster holes wider.

“Stop,” Rex said, eyes wide. His cheek was already tightening into a swollen lump.

Cody shook. “I can’t,” he said.

He charged, and Rex fired. Cody smelled burnt hair. He knocked Rex’s arms wide with both of his, and then grabbed him by his pauldron. A door hissed. Rex snapped his foot forward and then back, smacking into the back of Cody’s left knee, and Cody twisted with the fall, slamming Rex into the wall. He drew his fist back and Rex’s left blaster bounced off his nose. Cody flinched back; his grip loosened. The electrotorch came up in his peripherals, and Cody threw himself—

“ _No_.”

A wave of force hit him high on the chest, and Cody flew backwards, armor screeching cross the deck plates. He groaned, eyes closing, and tried to kick out. He tried to rock from side to side and couldn’t. He felt himself rise up in the air, trapped in an invisible net that squeezed him a little too tightly for comfort. His lungs burned for air, but he couldn’t seem to keep it from escaping his throat. He wheezed and shook. A [traitor.] He’d been right. A [traitor.] 

He heard a scuffle, and then a short conversation in whispers. He concentrated on his fingers, trying to make them curl into fists. Footsteps moved closer and Rex appeared above him. Rex cupped the back of his head with one hand and gripped him by the chin with the other.

“You’re gonna be all right,” he said. “It’s going to be…”

He glanced up and over Cody’s body. Cody tried to follow Rex’s gaze with his eyes, but whatever it was stayed just out of sight.

“Are you going to…?” Rex trailed off again.

“Yeah, I think it’s for the best, don’t you?”

The net vanished and Cody collapsed to the ground. Rex wrapped his arms and legs around him, trapping him on the ground like a wriggling eel. 

“A little help here, Attie?” Rex asked, panting. 

The trooper with the electrotorch grabbed him around the legs, holding Cody’s feet to the deck. Cody snarled and bucked. He looked up, craning his neck, and pushing the aching back of his head against Rex’s chest.

[Traitor] Tano knelt down in front of him, holding a syrette. She was dressed like a spacer, and her blue and white montrals had grown longer since the last time they’d met. Her smile only reached half of her face, and Cody spit. It dribbled down his chin. He struggled against Rex’s hold, hands clenching and unclenching.

“It’s good to see you, too, Commander,” she said, and stuck the syrette in the side of his neck. She squeezed the bag quickly, and Cody shook his head.

“I can’t—I—[good soldiers follow orders,]” he said. “[Traitor] Tano…”

A nightmare, that’s what this was. A nightmare he’d had over and over again: different settings, different [traitors], but he knew this feeling too well. She cupped his cheeks in her hands; [traitors] were always so much warmer. They burned. She leaned closer and Cody could see she’d grown thinner. Her orange skin was dulled; her markings looked too pale, almost translucent. His mouth fell open, panting.

“Sleep, Commander,” she said, staring at him. “ _Sleep_."

The order filled his head, pressure sharpening to a needle piercing his mind. He stiffened and suddenly his heartbeat was the loudest noise he could hear. The thudding of his heart in his ribcage grew louder and louder as it skipped and then began to slow, to draw him down and away from the pain flashing like an alert button in his head. He swallowed and blinked slowly. He shook himself, once, hard, and Rex’s grip tightened. [Traitor] Tano put her hand over his eyes, and Cody closed them. 

Her hand was so warm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> Sh'enn = Eight


	5. Chapter 5

There was a blanket wrapped around his ankle. Cody frowned. He sucked his teeth and unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth. He wiggled his ankle, but the blanket followed him, growing larger the more he turned his foot; it was winning. Someone close by hummed. He felt the blanket slip over his other foot in a fuzzy wave. 

Cody turned his head into his pillow and wrinkled his nose. The air was dry and smelled like bacta. The medbay. His skin prickled with cold, a brittle chill all across the top of his head and down his neck. He bit his lips together carefully between his teeth. He couldn’t really feel it; somebody had dosed him to the kriffing gills this time. He held his body still as the humming cut out.

“Back from your nap, sir?” Rivet asked, somewhere above him.

Cody heard the clack of a tray being set down next to him. He turned his head up out of his pillow, opened one eye, and shut it immediately again. Oh, stang. Why did he never remember the karking Force-twisting _lights?_ He hissed and lifted his arm, shoving at the air before dropping his hand back to his side. He flexed his wrist, and snuck a quick peek into the blinding luma panel above him. Blasted medbay. What—how had he gotten here?

“He was always hard to wake up on Kamino, too,” Rex said. Cody grimaced. “Fell off the top bunk and slept the rest of the night on the floor once.”

Cody snorted and regretted it. “That was you,” he said, and cautiously opened both eyes again.

“That’s not how I remember it,” Rex said.

Cody forced himself not to blink as he readjusted to the light. The stark white ceiling tiles and the edge of a ventilation grate slowly outlined themselves in his sight. He’d been in the debriefing room with Rex, hadn’t he? Force take it, his head felt like cotton and benibesset feathers. He and Rex…they’d been attacked. No, they’d been fighting. He had…

“You are pretty difficult to wake up,” Rivet said. “Especially when you have _twice_ the recommended dose of Pexereca and _Basscogh_ in your system.”

His face swung into Cody’s view, dark eyes staring down at him above the red articulated crosses. Rivet’s hair had been shaved off completely since the last, what, twenty karking minutes they’d seen each other? That was kriffing fast. The bald head made his thick eyebrows seem even bushier than usual as they drew together.

“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” Cody said, wincing.

“I’m surprised you didn’t spend the entire trip out here throwing up everything you’ve ever eaten. This should help with the disorientation,” Rivet said. He pressed a hypo-syringe to the inside of Cody’s forearm. It hissed as he pressed down on the plunger. “Can you sit up?”

He stepped back as Cody pushed up onto his elbows, dragging his head off his pillow. Rivet put both hands on Cody’s shoulders and pressed down. Cody fell back with a noise that was absolutely not a groan.

“And what in the blasted kriffing hell did you do that for?” he asked.

“Well, if you hadn’t decided to self-medicate _again_ , I wouldn’t need to test your reflexes,” Rivet said. “Sir.”

“I don’t remember ‘push your commanding officer until he falls over’ as part of my first aid course,” Cody said.

Rivet sniffed. “It was in the advanced classes, sir.”

Cody gritted his teeth and hauled his head up again. “Now, what the stang am I doing in this bed?”

“You fell asleep in the briefing room,” Rex said.

Cody heard feet hit the floor, and looked to the right. Rex stood in between Cody’s biobed and the closed off section of the medbay, fully armored except for his helmet. Rex raised one hand and waved a datapad at him. He grinned, bruised cheek bunching beneath the tail end of a wide strip of bandage that stretched from the side of his face to his temple. His left eye had a dark purple knot above the eyebrow.

“I…” Cody swallowed what he’d been going to say. Rex hadn’t looked like a piece of agol before Cody’d wound up on this blasted bed. He thought back, but nothing came to him, just a distant panic that made his chest tighten.

“Which is _why_ Commander Rex and Trooper Attack carried you in here,” Rivet said quickly and a little too loudly. “Because you were asleep.”

Cody jerked his eyes away from Rex’s bruising to look into Rivet’s face. The quiet sounds of movement reached him: someone coughed, a chair scraped across the floor. There were other people in the medbay. He felt numb, a creeping chill where the pain of his headaches used to be. His lungs shuddered as he tried to sit up higher on the bed, and Rivet pushed him back down again.

“He told you he prefers Attie.” Rex walked over to Cody's biobed. He leaned over, and Rivet stepped aside.

“Got me right in the eye when I tried to pick you up,” Rex said quickly. He nodded slightly, and tapped twice on the back of Cody’s hand; two other people in the room. “I forgot how heavy you are.”

“Heavy,” Cody repeated. He clenched his hands into fists.

“Yeah, brother,” Rex grinned. “But it wasn’t too bad, even with you and your blasted armor.”

Asleep. Karking napping. He’d swung on Rex, that was what had happened. He’d felt a Jedi touch his mind and he’d gone through Rex—and that Trooper—Attie?—Attack?—to get to Commander Tano. Oh stang, Commander Tano was on board, _alive_. Cody breathed in, chest flaring on a spike of air so dry it was almost painful. He’d tried to kriffing murder her. Why wasn’t he restrained?

“…and then we also fixed the damage to your knee,” Rivet was saying. He reappeared on Cody’s left. “Which I’m sure you got napping.”

“I dropped you,” Rex said.

He put his hand on Cody’s chest, and Cody exhaled, slumping back against the biobed. 

“Right,” Cody said. He closed his eyes, and tried to just feel the pressure of Rex’s hand, and the mattress beneath his body. He breathed in and then out. His arms shivered. Whatever stang Rivet had given him to clear the mush out of his head was starting to work. 

Napping; that was one karking way to put it. Maybe he’d been asleep the whole time, from the moment he’d ordered his general shot down to now.

“How’s your trooper?” he asked.

“Attie’s fine,” Rex said. “Takes more than your snoring to faze him. We’re… _all_ fine so far.”

Cody opened his eyes and swallowed. “Well, that’s something.”

Rex nodded. He leaned back with his hip against Cody’s biobed. He raised the datapad he’d been holding in his other hand and tapped something out. Rivet put his hand on Cody’s shoulder.

“Just a final diagnostic, sir,” he said. “Tilt your chin upward for me?”

Cody obeyed, grimacing when Rivet activated the bed’s sensors. The diagnostic struts arched over his upper body and beamed a holographic readout above his face. Cody opened and closed his fists.

“My head feels numb,” he said. “What’s been going on?”

The diagnostic screen beeped. Rivet circled something glowing in the upper right hand corner and expanded the image with two fingers. 

“Perfectly normal following surgery, sir,” he said. “Sergeant Kix and I saw it in the men as well. Would you mind taking one deep breath for me?”

Cody glared. He breathed. What had happened to his knee? “Surgery?”

Rex grunted. “Well, you were already out,” he said.

“For how long?” Cody raised his head; the diagnostic beeped at him. 

“Commander, please,” Rivet said. “I just need to match your blood pressure against the baseline in—”

“It’s _high_ , doc,” Cody snapped. 

They were going to tell everyone he’d fallen asleep on the job like a blasted shiny, fine. They weren’t going to restrain him, fine. But Force swallow them whole if they were going to keep him in the dark. Cody glared into the middle ground between Rivet and Rex.

“What the kark is going on, Rex?”

He’d dragged himself and the men out here for a karking reason, and if he was—was a danger, then he’d… He’d just stay away from the commander; he wouldn’t think of her at all. He’d at least be able to sit up without killing anyone. 

“Commander, your pulse just jumped, are you feeling nauseous? Is there anything wrong with your sight?”

Cody wriggled up towards the headboard of the biobed, and winced as the muscles in the back of his neck creaked. The blasted diagnostic struts blocked him from sitting up completely. Rivet reached out over the diagnostic display.

“Commander Cody—”

“Give us a minute, Rivet,” Rex said.

Rivet paused. He glanced between them. Cody nodded, and Rivet’s mouth pursed. 

“Sirs,” he said, standing up straight. “I’ll go help Kix repack the surgical gear.” 

He stepped back, turned on his heel, and walked away.

“Medics, huh?” Rex asked. He grinned. “Probably going to pay for that later,” he said.

Cody shook his head. Rex reached out with his free hand and shut down the diagnostic scan. The struts wobbled as they retracted into the biobed, and Cody pushed himself up the headboard into a sitting position. The pillow bunched beneath his back. He flexed his knee; it didn’t feel much worse than it had before. The damage must not have been too bad.

“So,” Cody said. “Surgery.”

Rex nodded. “You jumped the rotation by a few men, but Kix and Sergeant Rivet managed to keep everyone on schedule.”

“How long have I been out?”

Rex shrugged. “Including your recoup time…a day, day and a half.”

“ _A day and a half?_ ” Cody pushed himself higher up the headboard. “The General could be anywhere! Did we even have a course plotted when I—” 

Rex raised his eyebrows. Cody gritted his teeth. “When I _fell asleep?_ ” he continued.

“We’ve made a couple of quick jumps coreward—apparently it’s easier now that we’re looking for someone specifically—but we haven’t found stang yet. The Commander could explain it better than me right now.”

“I can’t kriffing believe this,” Cody tilted his head back. He raised his hand to his forehead and felt the cold, slick edge of a sealed bacta pack against his fingers. He blinked.

Rex cocked his head and frowned. Cody traced the edge of the pack up and over the top of his head. No hair. He widened his eyes.

“Cody?” 

Cody swallowed once, hard enough to feel the bunching of his throat muscles catch and release. He breathed out, and cupped his hand over the entire bandage.

“I…it’s out?” he asked. Stubble poked his fingertips as he traced his fingers along the sealed, damp edges.

Rex glanced outwards towards the rest of the medbay and back to Cody. “Of course it’s out,” he said. “Didn’t you hear what Rivet and I were saying?”

“You fixed my knee,” Cody said, dropping his hand to his lap. “After I…”

He lifted his chin at Rex; his eyes slid away from the bruise on his cheek. Rex snorted. “Echuta,” he said. “This is my fault; I should have shoved six cups of caff down your throat before Rivet even opened his mouth.”

He leaned forward, setting his datapad down by Cody’s thigh, and pushed on Cody’s shoulder until he squirmed over. Cody held himself stiffly as Rex settled near him on the bed, bumping their elbows and making him lean away to avoid having his karking neck stabbed by Rex’s pauldron.

“You sure you wanna get this close to me?” Cody muttered, crossing his arms. He shook his head. “Maybe you should keep us all in here until we can…how are the men behaving? Are you keeping them quarantined from the Co—” Cody cleared his throat. “Everyone’s okay?” 

She was, what, his second murder attempt now? Did the _Vigilance’s_ contingent count as one, or should he number them individually? The soldier in charge was always as responsible as the soldiers on the ground.

“The chip is out, brother,” Rex said, and twisted so that he could stare Cody in the eye. He leaned into him, the rough edge of his pauldron catching on the thin cotton of Cody’s medbay gown.

Cody breathed in through his mouth and tasted dry medbay air. He swallowed. Rex poked him in the shoulder, and Cody shook his head. He clutched the blanket in his lap.

Rex poked him again. “Cod’ika…” he trailed off quietly, lips twitching upwards.

Cody rolled his eyes. “Copaani mirshmure'cye?” he muttered, and shoved Rex’s hand away. He winced. “Sorry.”

Rex raised his eyebrows and sat back against the headboard. He put his hands in his lap. 

Cody shrugged. 

“I don’t…feel any different.”

Rex nodded. “No one did,” he said. “Not at first, anyway. You’ll see. You already sound different to me.”

“I…” Cody twisted the blanket across his legs in both hands as Rex straightened up. “Get off the bed, it’s too small for both of us.”

Rex snorted. “Like we never made that work before.”

Cody hiccupped what felt like a laugh, and cleared his throat again. “About the Comm—” he stopped himself.

Rex raised one eyebrow. Cody looked down at his hands and spread them out along his thighs. He narrowed his eyes. He breathed in, and then out again, and felt the scratchiness of his medbay gown, Rex’s weight against his right side, and the firm mattress beneath his karking ass. The air was cool against his shaved head.

“Commander Tano,” he said slowly and looked up.

He narrowed his eyes. Rex didn’t seem to think Cody’d said anything he hadn’t wanted to; he just nodded. “She’s waiting up in the briefing room,” he said, smiling with one corner of his mouth. “Most of your men have been trailing her around like younglings at their first S & D sim.”

A balloon slowly expanded in Cody’s chest, a bubble so insistent it almost hurt, like muscles he hadn’t ever realized were cramped were suddenly moving again.

Obi-Wan Kenobi. He licked his lips.

“What?” 

Rex shrugged. “They’re just a little excited,” he said. “My boys fell over themselves trying to do stang for her once they got their chips out. It’s a little like they’re shinies again. Your Corporal Juri keeps refilling her teacup.”

Cody coughed out a chuckle. “Fierfek,” he said. “They’re an embarrassment to the Battalion.”

The corners of his mouth twitched; he pressed his lips against his teeth. Cody looked out over the medbay at where Twenty-Three lay on the biobed on the far side of the room, curled up on his side. Rivet and Kix stood off in the far corner, talking.

“You’re sure?” he asked, turning back to Rex.

Rex nodded and cleared his throat. “Swear on the Jedi’s lives,” he said. “Sergeant Rivet said he’s going to put them all on slides, as evidence.”

“All right,” Cody said and paused. It wasn’t karking likely those slides were going to ever be shown in a court. He coughed. “We got our next move planned out?”

“Not yet,” Rex said, eyeing him. “We jumped to hyperspace while you were out, but the Commander and I would like your input, if you’re finished sleeping.”

Cody rolled his eyes. A shiver built in his stomach, expanding as it rose up to his ribs. “Get me some karking armor, numa-humper.”

Rex rocked into Cody, knocking him sideways, and stood up, raising both hands and his datapad. “Hope you like blue,” he said, grinning. 

“It’s not our color,” Cody said as Rex walked over to where the medics stood. The door hissed open and then closed. 

He swung his legs over the side of the biobed. The blanket slid to the floor. Cody bowed his head as the room wobbled around him. He pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth and stiffened his back. He couldn’t lie back down now. He heard Twenty-Three shift on his bed, and Rivet talking quickly, but too quietly to understand.

Cody opened his mouth; his throat tightened. Jedi Healer Yalyash Tan-Oshi. Padawan Commander Athonjo Nairisse. They’d skipped their titles during the Hour of Remembrance; no one had wanted to say the wrong words. “Clon’ad draar digu,” he muttered. 

Cody breathed in. Commander Ashoka Tano. 

He breathed out. Just karking say it.

“General Obi-Wan Kenobi,” he whispered, just in case. He paused. The words didn’t feel different. He touched the bacta pack on his forehead again.

General Mace Windu. General Aayla Secura. General Anakin Skywalker.

“General Kahdah,” he said, and frowned. 

His gut tightened. The thought of the Third Systems Army—of Obi-Wan’s own 212th—under that blasted _birth-born_ and his mir’osik cadre of officers was enough to make Cody’s blood curdle. The army was better left to clones and Jedi; they knew how to run it. There must have been a reason Kahdah had had his orders all set to go; there had never been a chain of command addendum to that karking order.

Cody snorted, and rolled his shoulders out of their sudden tension. So. Not the same feeling, maybe. He put both hands on the edge of his biobed and tightened his grip. He closed his eyes.

“General Obi-Wan Kenobi,” he whispered again. He shivered. Cody leaned back and cupped his hands over his face. His damp, warm breath filled the bowl of his palms as he spoke, scraping his brain for all the titles Obi-Wan had ever held.

“ _Jedi_ Master Obi-Wan Kenobi of the Coruscant Temple, out of the Coruscant Temple, Sixth Master of the Jedi High Council.”

Cody pressed his palms against his face. He dropped his hands to his lap, inhaled quickly, and swallowed. He felt his stomach turn over as heat washed through his chest.

“High Jedi General of the Third Systems Army. General of the Open Circle Fleet.”

Cody opened his eyes. His shoulders felt too light without his armor. He rubbed his fingers over his scars, tracing each curved slice down the side of his face. Stang. He felt the top of his forehead again, touching the bandage carefully. His skin itched in the dry air, same as it always did in a medbay. 

It was out. The damn thing was actually out; he’d never…he’d been chipped from the beginning of—of _him_ —and now he…wasn’t. He hadn’t dreamed anything, either; Cody always remembered, and getting knocked out had always made his dreams worse, but now, this time, he couldn’t remember dreaming at all. He rubbed the back of his neck.

Across from him, Twenty-Three lay with his back to Cody, curled up tightly on his side beneath doubled blankets. Cody sighed. It was probably better to let him sleep. Further off, Rivet and Kix were passing slides between them across an open bag.

They had a chance now. Maybe. If the kriffing brain chip was the only thing wrong with him—with any of them. If he didn’t see Commander Tano and flip the karking switch on some other landmine buried in his skull. Cody frowned. Rex had said he was fine, but what would he know about it? He’d been karking _fused_ , he’d never…done what they had.

Stang. Cody looked down at his hands and ground his teeth together. All right, one kriffing problem at a numa-humping time. He stood, smacking his bare feet on the tiled floor.

“General Kenobi,” he said, a little more loudly.

There was a difference now; he could feel it. He felt…nothing. No flash of pain driving nails into his temples, no shake in his chest or sticky clog in his throat. He looked down at his empty hands. No holding a weapon he didn’t remember drawing.

The medbay doors opened, and Cody looked up as Rex entered, carrying an armor case in one hand.

“Hope you can stand scout’s armor for a little while longer,” he said, setting the case at the foot of Cody’s biobed. “We had to play mix and match with some of our spares, but we’ve got everyone kitted out in gear that has fewer decorative holes.”

He looked Cody up and down from the corner of his eye, and tossed a helmet towards his chest. Cody caught it with both hands around the thick bottom lip. 

“I suppose I can handle anything for a little while longer,” he said, glancing down at the blue sunburst sprayed over his visor. He could see a thin line of yellow peeking out from a spot over his helmet’s right eye that Ink had missed.

“Good,” Rex said. He unlocked the armor case, flipped up the lid, and spun the case towards Cody. “The commander wants to talk to you.”

 

***

 

Walking got easier the further away he made it from the medbay, but Kix insisted on hovering at Cody’s elbow all the way from the mid-ship elevator and across to the bridge elevator in the fore. 

“That’s a lot of empty space,” Cody said as they walked into the elevator carriage. 

“Technically, we’re supposed to be a cargo ship,” Rex said.

“Cargo ship,” Cody muttered. He put his hand out to brace himself against the smooth white wall as the elevator lifted, and Kix shifted his small medpac bag in front of him.

“Are you dizzy, sir?” he asked. “Do you have blurred vision? Vapor had some depth perception problems after his surgery; it was only temporary, but it lasted for a couple of hours. All those new neural pathways, I guess.”

Cody rolled his eyes, but kept his helmet still. “Just don’t like elevators,” he said. “Nothing to worry about here.”

Kix tightened his grip on the bag’s shoulder strap. “Just making sure, sir,” he said. “It’s better to catch these things early on.”

“It’s fine,” Cody said. “I’m sure the rest of my men appreciate the concern as well.”

“And they were really polite about it, too,” Rex said. “Your general must be rubbing off on you.”

Cody cleared his throat. Kix settled back on his heels with both hands on his bag; his thumbs were rubbing circles against his knuckles. Rex stepped in between them.

“Where are my men?” Cody asked. 

Rex shook his head. “I needed to borrow your Trooper Snag for piloting duties so Del could get some sleep. Sergeant Boil is up on deck with Commander Tano, but apart from your medic and the shiny in the medbay, they’ve mostly stuck to the crew quarters.”

Cody grunted. The elevator lights dimmed.

“Eighty-One and Zeer took Trip-Sevens and Juri to the armory while you were out, Commander,” Kix said. “We had to trade their DC-15s back for my missing vibroblades.”

Cody winced and leaned a little harder against the elevator. “It’s just a habit. Trip-Sevens doesn’t mean anything by it.”

“He had a deactivated scalpel in his hair, sir.”

Rex cleared his throat, and Cody resisted the urge to elbow him in the plates. He bent his knees for balance as the elevator slowed to a stop. The doors opened on a short hallway lined with blinking auxiliary systems panels on the right; to the left, a corridor branched off. Kix stepped out first, turned, and looked Cody over again, furrowing his forehead as he tilted his head to the side. Cody dropped his hand away from the wall of the elevator. He waved Kix onward. Kix’s nostrils flared as he breathed in. He glanced over Cody’s shoulder and turned on his heel. He punched a short code into the key at the threshold, and the door to the bridge opened and shut behind him.

“What crawled up his shebs and died?” Cody asked as he and Rex moved out into the corridor.

Cody's shoulders hunched up, tensing as Rex paused. Kix could have "insisted" on joining them on Rex’s orders; maybe they were lying about him and the men being in the clear. Cody squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them. He felt a little kriffing dizzy, sure, but whatever kind of stim Rivet had shot him up with was still going strong. He shifted his shoulders back and noted that the pauldron straps needed to be redone. He had no headache, no jabs of pain, but what did he know about it? He hadn’t recognized what was happening the first time. He reached up and gripped the lip of his helmet in both hands, and then forced himself to relax. Rex watched him, raising his eyebrows and rubbing his thumb across his cheek. Cody let his hands fall.

“He just needs a project right now,” Rex said. “Rivet’s taken over monitoring Commander Tano, and your shiny keeps falling asleep, so…looks like you’re it.”

Cody stepped towards the bridge door, and his right hand landed where his sidearm should have hung. “You said the Commander was all right.”

Rex walked around him, resting his hand briefly on Cody’s shoulder as he passed. “Rivet’s got his Jedi certification, that’s all, brother,” he said. 

“But she’s unharmed,” Cody said. 

Rex paused with his hand upraised by the keypad. He turned his head to look towards him. “She’s fine,” he said. “You know what Jedi are like.”

“Easier to kill than we thought,” Cody said.

Rex flinched and then stilled in place. Cody clenched his hands into fists. He swallowed heavily and looked past Rex to the closed door where Commander Tano was waiting for him.

“She’s not injured,” Rex said roughly. He dragged his hand back and forth over his scalp. “And there is no one here who’ll hurt her, and the other half of Kix’s tsad’ika is still on Coruscant with the rest of the 501st, so let him take your blasted kriffing temperature if he wants to, all right?” 

Blast. Cody nodded. “Yeah,” he said.

“Great,” Rex said, and raised his hand back to the keypad. 

Cody grabbed his elbow. “Rex, I…”

He shut his mouth. His thumb pressed right into the curve of Rex’s elbow, on the band of his couter. For a second, he wanted to take off his helmet, and go bare like Rex was, but it felt better, warmer to be fully armored.

“Thank you,” Cody said. “I know it was a risk.”

He could have gone after the 501st himself, as soon as he knew what was happening, and left Cody out in the ether. Just suggesting that Cody abandon his post was treason; they could have shown up with the _Vigilance_ instead of one tiny shuttle, and blown Rex’s ship out of the sky. All Cody would have had to do was signal the fleet, and he’d have been a hero before Kahdah had put one foot on his ship; the clone who rounded up an entire crew of AWOL clones. It was a much better position for the 212th’s complement to be in than what they were probably in now. Cody tightened his grip on Rex’s elbow. He’d still be chipped.

“ _Thank you_ ,” he said again.

Rex covered Cody’s hand with his own. Cody hadn’t even asked how he was holding up. An ache settled into his gut. Rex had been away from his men far longer than Cody had; he’d had to kriffing kill some of them. 

“Are you, I mean, can I do anything?”

“Come on,” Rex said, and Cody dropped his hand free. “Let’s go talk to the Commander.”

He punched a code into the keypad and stepped through the door as it opened. Cody followed. The door swished closed behind them, and Cody saw Commander Tano floating, seated, two feet in the air to his right, in the center of the bridge. His helmet optics registered a—a karking light fluctuation around her body.

“Kix, I’m hallucinating,” Cody said.

Rex snorted. “What, your Jedi never floats?” he asked. “You can’t get ours into an actual chair.”

He clapped Cody on the shoulder as he walked over to stand just outside the cockpit, but he ducked his head, and Cody couldn’t look him in the eye. Cody drifted after him with his hands at his sides. His tongue clicked in his dry mouth. Commander Tano’s hands were on her knees and her face was tilted towards the ceiling; the farther Cody walked onto the bridge, the higher the temperature rose on his HUD monitor. Kix stood behind her, typing into a datapad one-handed. Further off in the corner, Boil paused in his conversation with one of Rex’s men; he looked tense, but Cody waved him off. 

He walked closer to Commander Tano with his arms pressed to his sides. His stomach twisted, a heaviness pressing against his chest, but it wasn’t like before. He frowned. He didn’t think it was like before. He glanced to the side, where Rex stood by Snag at the pilot’s seat. He had his hand on one of his blasters, and Cody felt his muscles loosen. He turned back to Commander Tano.

She was looking at him. Cody tensed, but his hands stayed at his sides, just like he wanted them to.

“Those meditation rooms get crowded, Rex,” she said. She smiled and Cody could see the sharp points of her teeth. “This way we never have to worry about seating.”

“I can’t say I remember floating in any meditation class on the _Vigilance_ , sir,” Cody said.

The Commander had lost weight; he could see it in the point of her chin and the hollow of her collarbones. She was shivering in her padded red spacer’s jacket. She snickered, clasped her hands in front of her, took a deep breath, and lowered her head. The air grew heavy as the temperature spiked two degrees. Cody glanced over to Rex again, but he was talking to Snag. He looked back as Commander Tano dropped both feet to the floor with a quiet smack. Kix made a note on his datapad. The temperature began to fall steadily in Cody’s readout.

“That’s the longest run you’ve made yet,” Kix said. “Rivet wants another diagnostic.”

Commander Tano sighed. “I keep telling you both, it’s _much_ easier now that I have someone specific to actually concentrate on,” she said. 

“You might as well, sir,” Boil said. He walked over to stand by Kix. “Rivet gets mean if he doesn’t run a diagnostic every half-hour or so.”

He glanced up at Cody, raised his hand and tucked his first two fingers down, and then flashed jenth, aruek, osk at chest level. Cody took a breath. So, the Commander was juiced, but alert and operational for…whatever the hell she was doing. He could plot a battle with Jedi capabilities in mind, but he’d never really understood the mechanics of it. Behind him, Cody could see Rex’s man twisting his helmet between his hands; he had a chunk torn out of his ear and the heavy shoulders of a brother who marched in Katarn armor since he’d been decanted. 

The Commander sighed. “Fine,” she said. “But it’s not going to tell you anything different than the last two. Have either of you had time to read that holocron I gave you?”

Cody blinked. “You gave Rivet and Kix a _holocron_ , sir?” he asked. 

The Commander paused and then nodded. “I’m not a Jedi anymore, Commander,” she said. “I’ll give a holocron to whoever I want.” 

Cody felt himself waver on his feet, or maybe the room shifted. He closed his eyes and fought the urge to put his hand out. He felt karking _fine_ , he just needed a minute to breathe.

“Of course, sir,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to apologize for, Commander,” she said, and smiled again, making her white cheek markings bunch. “It’s good to see you again, even like this.”

Her grey and white banded montrals swayed over her shoulders as she walked forward; the top ridge had already started to grow into points. Cody clasped his hands behind him. She stopped a foot away from him and raised her chin. She didn’t look so bad, now—taller, thinner maybe, but she hadn’t stopped shivering and her orange skin looked brittle and translucent, the way Jedi got if they used the Force for too long. Beside her, Kix had pulled out a diagnostic reader and aimed the blue light at the base of the Commander’s spine.

“Commander,” Cody said, and glanced around at the men. He clenched his jaw. He couldn’t karking apologize for taking a _nap_ , and he couldn’t apologize for—for going off like a Geonosian blasted out of its hive in front of people all karking acting like he’d just fallen asleep. He cleared his throat. “It’s good to be here.”

“Corporal Juri’s been telling us how you got out,” Rex said, finally walking back from the cockpit instead of riding Snag like the backseat pilot he always had been. “From the way he told it, if we don’t get out of this mess, you’ve got a great career in petty theft ahead of you.”

“To be fair, sir, Juri never said you were a petty thief!” Rex’s man called out, moving off the wall. “Private Eighty-One, sir. He said you were like Hylo Visz; he was very insistent on that point.”

“I don’t remember that,” Boil said. He glanced at Cody, and set his jaw. 

Commander Tano ducked her head and smiled. “I’m sure that makes it much better,” she muttered.

“Famous blockade runners aside,” Boil said, as he walked around them to stand by Cody’s side. Someone had finally made him shave the remains of his goatee off, thank the living Force, so there was at least a patch of skin bare beneath the bandages around his head. “I’ve been trying to fill in some of the intelligence gaps for the commanders while you were getting your chip out, sir.”

Rex nodded. “I’ve been trying to keep up with news from the front since I was taken off patrol duty, but with the Seppies pushing so hard, the report feed couldn’t keep up.”

“And I lost my access when I left the Order,” the Commander said. “Boil’s been helpful, but we’d like to hear from you, Commander Cody, if you’re feeling up to it?”

Cody nodded and clenched his fists behind him as the room bobbled. “Of course, sir.”

Commander Tano’s smiled flickered. “I lost my commission, too,” she said. “You can call me Ashoka, you know.”

Cody paused. 

Call the Commander by her first name? She wasn’t even Cody’s Jedi. He glanced at Rex, who raised his eyebrows at him. The bruise on his face shone under the harsh bridge lighting. Cody turned back to Comm…Tano.

“Yes,” he said.

Tano nodded. “We’ll work on it.” She took a step and stumbled, lurching to the right. Boil jumped forward and caught her by the elbows.

“Sir!” he said. “Can I—you should sit down. Kix!”

“Oh, Rivet is going to love this,” Kix muttered, stuffing his diagnostic reader in his pack. “Commander, you’re reading as below temperature, are you feeling any tingling in your montrals?”

Cody took a step and Rex pushed in front of him, holding him back. Over his shoulder, he could see Tano shaking her head. 

“No, I’m all right,” she said. “I’m always just a little off center after a search. It’s fine!”

“Rivet’s gotten that spike by now, sir—”

“Ashoka,” she said.

“Sir Ashoka, so just let me take a look.”

Kix went to one knee and dug the scanner out of his pack again; he pointed the business end at the center of Tano’s chest. Boil looked back at Cody and then to the Commander.

“Sir, uh, are you all right if I let go?”

“She needs water,” Eighty-One said. “Where did we put the water on this damned tub?”

Tano took a deep breath and nodded. She smiled. “Of course,” she said. She raised her voice. “Actually, if everyone could just give me some room?”

Cody backed up with the rest of the group and even Kix scuttled back on his one knee, scratching the deck with his knee guard, but Rex stayed where he was. Cody could see his shoulders rise and fall with his breath; his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. Commander Tano stood straight and took a full deep breath. She looked at Rex, and held her arms away from her sides. 

“See?” she asked.

Rex’s entire body wavered, and Cody looked away. He walked to the cockpit. Snag, already twisted around to stare into the bridge, glanced over at the sound of his footsteps and then began to rise. Cody waved him back down.

“Sir,” Snag said, and Cody nodded. Snag turned around to face the front viewport again. He had the familiar long bandage curving over his bare scalp, and probably a new scar to match the ones on his chin now. “I hope you don’t mind, um, Del—Corporal Del, I mean, needed to be relieved and I thought it would be better to maintain the search pattern Commander Tano and Captain Rex set up until, uh.”

“It’s not a problem,” Cody said. “I’m glad Captain Rex had a spot for you.”

“We haven’t found anything yet, sir,” Snag said, ducking his chin against his gorget. He was wearing heavy infantry armor again, but the entire right side was painted in blue lightning bolts. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Cody said. He looked back over his shoulder. Kix was running another diagnostic on the Commander, who was holding her arms out by her sides and rolling her eyes. She looked like Obi-Wan when Cody would maneuver him into getting a scan instead of giving up his place in line to "someone more in need." Maybe she was worse than she insisted, and he just didn’t remember hitting her. He couldn’t—he couldn’t really remember some of the things he’d done before his—his nap. The floor wobbled, and Cody caught himself on the back of Snag’s chair. 

“Sorry! Sorry,” Snag said, and Cody looked down to see him typing in a course correct on the board. 

“Damn it,” he heard Kix say behind him. “Eighty-One, not the water packs. Grab the bug out juice.”

“Snag, did you see something?” Rex asked. He turned away from Tano and crossed his arms.

“No, it’s just the gravity from that asteroid we’re passing,” Snag said, pointing off to the right on the viewport. “It’s got a three point deviation and it bobbles.”

“Well, there’s something here,” Commander Tano said. “Switching between the mindset I need to Search and this level of reality might make stumble me a bit, but it doesn’t make me wrong.”

“Not like Vohai,” Rex said, clearing his throat.

“Vohai was a legitimate option,” Tano said.

“I thought so,” Cody said. He pushed off from the back of Snag’s chair. “Comm—Tano, I’m assuming the kar—uh, the floating has something to do with…searching?”

Rex snorted, and Tano glanced up at him. She nodded. “After Master Plo,” she paused and took a deep breath before continuing. Cody avoided meeting her eyes. The report on Cato Neimoidia had been very clear.

“After Master Plo went missing in the Abregado system, I got…I thought we needed a more accurate method of retrieving lost soldiers in the field,” she said. She looked out to the cockpit and then back to Cody. “Master Obi-Wan agreed, and he got the council to let me look in the restricted archives. He helped me search the library for anything that looked useful—we even looked through actual manuscripts! He knew—he _knows_ a lot about history, even though—”

“It’s not his field.” Cody cleared his throat.

She nodded. “Yeah,” she said, and then shook her head. “Anyway, we found what we were looking for, even though we had to go all the way back to Master Gnost-Dural’s original notes. The unrevised ones. I don’t think I’ve studied that much since I left the crèche.”

“And you’ve been using it to search for the other Jedi?” Cody asked. He blinked a few times, trying to get his optics to stop blurring. Thank the Force, he’d kept his bucket on. 

“For anyone, really, Commander.” Tano tilted her head from side to side. “Apparently, we—I mean, the Jedi—placed a little more emphasis on recovery and salvage during the Mandalorian Wars than we do now. By focusing on someone’s presence in the Force, they could…”

“Hunt them down like a bantha at dinner time?” Rex offered. 

Tano shrugged. “It’s a little more like how pilots in the Explorer Corps create their flight paths, but pretty much.”

She looked out the front viewport and stuck her hands in her pockets. Cody looked around the bridge. “Why haven’t we heard about this before?”

“The council decided it was too untested to be used in the field,” Tano said. Cody’s HUD registered a slight temp spike and then it settled again. “They said training would take too many Jedi off the front lines, and we’d actually lose more people than we’d save.”

“But if the General himself helped you—and it’s not new if it’s rediscovered, is it?” Boil asked. “I thought Jedi liked their history.”

And if Cody had a credit for every time Obi-Wan tried to get the council to change its karking mind and let them win the kriffing war, he’d have bought himself out of his Debt twice over with enough left for Obi-Wan’s fees. Cody shook his head, and Boil shut his mouth. He glanced at Rex and then the Commander. Tano looked over at him and lines appeared in her forehead, dimpling the two white curves above her eyebrows. 

“Master Obi-Wan was outvoted,” she said, and her lip curled. She touched the spot just below the left crest of her montrals, where her Padawan beads used to hang. “It’s actually easier to find one person rather than just anyone,” she said, in a brighter tone. “It’s much less tiring. It’s almost like empty meditation, actually, only you have to be open to the Force in a very specific way. Master Obi-Wan had to help me with that. Skyguy is much better for the moving forms.”

Cody stiffened. Empty meditation. Obi-Wan always claimed that it was the only way to clear his mind, but then he’d open his eyes and spend hours touching his own things like he had to remind himself what they were used for, and looking at Cody and the men the same way. 

How could anyone find anything in a meditation with results like that? He narrowed his eyes as Commander Tano continued. She didn’t seem too far gone; in fact she looked, weirdly, more like herself than he’d ever seen her before. Centered. “…the Force likes going places, and it contains all things, so it’s not really like searching. It’s more like…bringing yourself into a place to find the thing you already found.”

Cody glanced at Rex. Rex shrugged.

“Coming up on the Drifter’s Graveyard now, sirs,” Snag said.

Cody twisted his upper body around to stare out the viewport. “The Drifter’s Graveyard?” he repeated, turning back to Tano. “That’s not spinward, that’s trailing west! What the hell are we doing all the way out here?”

“Commander Tano had a feeling,” Private Eighty-One said. He stepped up to Tano’s side, looming over her, and handed her a cup. “Sergeant Rivet says you have to drink one of these every twenty minutes or he’s hooking you to a drip in the medbay and you can, um.” He coughed. 

Tano sighed, but took the cup. “Just spit it out, Eighty-One,” she said

Eighty-One tugged on his earlobe and looked down at his boots. “You can 'karking burn yourself out on someone else’s time,'” he mumbled in a rush. “Sir. Commander, I mean. Ashoka?” 

Rex put his hand over his eyes. 

“It’s all right. You should hear what Kix has to say about the Captain here. Does it have to be blue?” she asked, staring down into the cup. 

“No, sir,” Eighty-One said. “But that’s the only flavor we have on board.”

Cody looked at the starscape through the viewport and leaned left to look into the display next to the pilot’s controls. Nothing showed on the path programmed into the navicomputer, but that could change in the next instant. The Drifter’s Graveyard was halfway between nothing and a wide stretch of barely stable habitable planetoids pocketed with unlicensed colonies and illegal mines, and traversed by spacer barges that doubled as mobile black markets. It was less policed than Nar Shaddaa during feasting season, and no less than three hours-long jumps from the junction coreward. Obi-Wan might have come here if he wanted to disappear completely, but not just to refuel.

“I thought we were operating on the assumption that General Kenobi,” Cody paused and cleared his throat. “That the General was making his way to Coruscant.”

“We are,” Commander Tano said. “But while I was looking for his Force signature, I got a strong urge to send the ship to these coordinates. My senses have been getting stronger the longer I’m immersed in the Force.”

“Just as long as it’s more accurate than Vanquo,” Rex said. 

Commander Tano sniffed. “Vanquo doesn’t count,” she said. “You were wearing a full length cloak.”

“Ba’vo—uh, the General has a signature in the Force?” Boil asked.

“Everyone has a signature in the Force,” Cody said without turning around. He reached out and pulled up the navicomputer’s mapping program, and stuck his thumb and first finger into the center of the starmap, widening them to enlarge the map. There was a small moon two hours out, orbiting a red sun. “How else do you think the Jedi can tell us apart?”

“It’s one of the ways,” Tano said. “But I like to think some of us are as good as a clone at telling who’s who.”

Rex cleared his throat. 

“Full. Length. Cloak,” Tano repeated.

Cody looked up from the navicomputer’s readout. “Is it enough to get a course plotted, or do we go further in?”

He pushed himself upright using the side of the pilot’s chair, shaking Snag in his seat. Tano drank from her cup and grimaced; she was still shivering. Her markings had shifted across her face since she’d been away, lengthening with age. He could see Kix standing over her shoulder about three feet back, frowning at his datapad. 

“Rivet says you should sit down and eat, Commander,” Kix said.

“I think we can trust Commander Tano to tell us when she’s hungry, Kix,” Rex said, and shook his head.

Kix glanced up from his pad. “What? Oh, sorry, sir, I meant Commander Cody. Rivet said something about Basscogh and—” he glanced down and his eyebrows raised. “and an entire _cylinder’s_ worth of Pexereca?”

“Right, I’ll just take over the navigation, if that’s all right, sir,” Boil said, and walked around Cody to slide into the seat next to Snag. “Juri said the galley here’s got better scran than the entire GAR. We can handle a sweep if Commander Tano will point us in the right direction.”

Cody stiffened, and then felt a hand pressing down hard on the back of his cuirass. He looked over his shoulder, and saw Rex, who jerked his head towards the door. 

“Three sergeants to one commander,” he said quietly, and grinned.

Cody waggled his helmet, and Tano coughed into her cup, shoulders shaking. Rex tugged on Cody’s left shoulder plate, and Cody let himself be pulled away from the cockpit.

“Come on,” Rex said. “We can debrief over a meal pack.”

 

***

 

Cody punched the door panel and stepped over the threshold into the next corridor even as the door hissed open. He kept his eyes on the datapad as he walked. Cody double-tapped the save icon on the _Arrow’s_ personnel file, then closed the program. He’d uploaded the files he’d taken from the _Vigilance_ during the debrief, but held off on adding the 212th’s complement to the ship’s roster until afterward. Something to do during the down time of searching.

Fourteen clones and one Jedi running after a ghost; it sounded like the beginning of a bad joke. He shook his head. Maybe the punchline.

Searching under Commander Tano was faster than scouting around the galaxy on their own, but it yielded the same results, a parade of places where Obi-Wan wasn’t. Once, they hailed a refueling tanker making its way from Koda Station to Gerrenthum, and the captain admitted to seeing a shuttle blip on their sensors. Then she locked target, fired a shot across the _Arrow’s _bow, and hyped out of range. According to the alerts Rex kept uploading to their paired datapads, Tano was spending more time in Search than out of it. Cody might not be able to feel the blasted Force, but Obi-Wan wasn’t in the Drifter’s Graveyard.__

__Searching was every siege and running battle he’d ever fought in smashed into one, with nothing to show for it but a karking sack of bantha fodder. They were going to run out of fuel before they even got out of the Outer Rim. They seemed to be following some kind of trajectory, according to the ship’s coordinates, but it didn’t work. Nothing worked, and there was nothing to do but karking hype to the next empty space._ _

__Cody had his blasted choice of options in the down time. He could stay in the galley and watch Juri skin the 501st for loose credits and spare ammo, or shift his attention to the right and watch Trip-Sevens field strip and clean his Deece, or he could join Boil in the hold and update the _Arrow’s_ inventory. He could reread Kix’s report on Twenty-Three, or Rivet’s report on Commander Tano, since apparently both of them needed more fluids. He could go back up to the bridge and watch empty space next to Rex…within arm’s reach of a Jedi._ _

__Rex had given him back his pistol; just because Tano hadn’t made his brain pop like a detonated luma panel didn’t mean it couldn’t happen. Cody shook his head and followed the white-walled corridor. He passed by the door to the crew’s quarters. The datapad in his right hand beeped. He raised it and looked at the screen; Twenty-Three was awake._ _

__The green water wheel in the top left corner of the screen was revolving again; Rex was working on something, but Cody was locked out of the program. The _Arrow’s Compass_ hadn’t been hooked up to the Galactic Network since Rex’s mission came online as far as he could tell, but his datapad did have the GAR’s intranet. Cody’s thumb hovered over the red starburst icon. He could try Rex’s code; the login would respond to that. Moti and the _Vigiliance_ didn’t have any way to contact him, and at this range from Utapau, Obi-Wan’s scrambler didn’t have enough juice to connect. If the 212th were even still on Utapau, of course. They could have hyped back to where the rest of the Third Systems Army was running maneuvers in the Both system. Who knew what karking _Kahdah_ was doing to the men?_ _

__Cody glanced up at the exposed support struts as he walked down the center of the pathway that ran between the empty storage pods magnetized to the ship’s hull. His boots rang against the grates as he walked. He angled the datapad up to catch the light. Rex had taken over navigation and he kept pinging Cody to double check his plotting coordinates, which was the sort of kriffing redundancy they had the blasted computer for._ _

__Cody typed out the single digit course correction and sent it back. He stepped down the three steps out of the pod storage sector and into the well-lit main corridor ship. Abruptly, the sound of his footsteps cut out; he was probably close enough to the thrusters for the sound bafflers to have kicked in._ _

__He checked the ship’s records again. No reported incidents so far, and both Trip-Sevens and Juri were up on the bridge, standing in for Snag and Rex’s Del. Commander Tano was still operational. He paused and clenched his hands around the datapad. She was fine; he was being a karking fool. If there was anything wrong with any of the men, they would know by now._ _

__His stomach grumbled. He took a deep breath and called up the command folder on the datapad. The screen darkened; an alert unfolded across the midsection. They were hyping backwards to Jiroch. Jiroch? Where the hell was that?_ _

__He tapped the screen twice to clear it and then called up the map. The datapad’s screen blanked out and rebooted: the _Arrow’s Compass_ was now a bulk commodities freighter, traveling back to Kinyen to pick up grain shipments. Nowhere. Jiroch was nothing and nowhere and the best that could be said about it was that the natives were so primitive they couldn’t karking shoot at the ship before telling Rex they hadn’t seen anyone pass by. It was on the Correllian Trade Spine, but the CTS had been closed to the Outer Rim Sectors for three months, since the Seppies had blown the Handiron factory on Bespin._ _

__Cody came to a stop in the middle of the corridor. He felt the rumble of the engines beneath his feet; he should get to a station with a chair and strap in. He looked down at the datapad again. There’d been a troop movement update before they’d launched on Utapau. The GAR had tasked a contingent of the 16th Army to patrol the cordon, but the Ivory Fang were spread so thinly they were as effective as soap on Nar Shaddaa. No. Cody shook his head. No, they were dumb karkers, but even the brothers in the 16th could spot General Grevious’s ship when it blazed past their sensor arrays. Obi-Wan… Cody grimaced. Obi-Wan was maybe that karking crazy._ _

__Hyping down the CTS to the TR was quicker than hopping through the intra-system lanes. He could dump the shuttle at one of the larger spaceyards and stow away on a passenger ship to Coruscant. Hell, no one ever stopped those big yachts out of Kaal, not even when they jumped military flight paths. Commander Tano could be right on Obi-Wan’s trail._ _

__Cody swallowed heavily and shook his head. He swallowed again. His stomach squeezed in on itself. The datapad darkened and popped up with an alert. Cody put his free hand out and leaned on the wall. They were prepping for another jump. He walked forward another few steps._ _

__It could be nothing. The Outer Rim was huge and they were too small; they had a better chance of finding Jango Fett’s blasted corpse than they did of finding any Jedi out here, even with the Force. His brothers were too good at their jobs._ _

__His armor plates clicked as his shoulders shifted. His head drooped for a second, but Cody raised it again. He felt…strangely light._ _

__The ship wobbled and corrected right, and Cody dropped to the floor. He shoved himself against the wall and braced with his boots flat against the deck as the ship flung itself into hyperspace. He closed his eyes; time to do his duty._ _

__

__***_ _

__

__In the medbay, it was just Twenty-Three on his bed and Kix at a makeshift desk covered with an open medpak and far too many vibroscalpels out of their sani-pouches. The medidroid was still plugged into its charging station against the wall. It was quiet, mostly, and Cody could feel the dense, hot knot between his shoulder blades relax by a few degrees. He set his datapad down on the foot of Twenty-Three’s biobed._ _

__Twenty-Three sat with his bare feet dangling in the air; his hands gripped the edge of his bed on either side of his thighs. He was only wearing his bodyglove, but Cody could see a slice of rough brown fabric underneath the crumpled blanket behind him. He’d thought Rivet had taken the Jedi’s robe away._ _

__Cody caught Twenty-Three’s eyes and tilted his helmet to the right, so the shiny would think he was smiling. Twenty-Three looked away. He plucked at his sleeves and pulled his left cuff over his hand._ _

__“Looks like your hair’s growing back all right,” Cody said, taking a step closer._ _

__Twenty-Three’s head dipped. His scalp and jaw were already covered with a dusting of black stubble; poor shiny must’ve had to shave twice a day on the _Vigiliance_ to stay as clean cut as he had been._ _

__Cody cleared his throat. “How are you feeling?” he asked._ _

__“Kix says I can stay,” Twenty-Three said, glancing up and then down again. He licked his lips and his hand strayed back to the blanket behind him. “He said I have a concussion from—um, before, and I get dizzy, so if—if it’s all right, sir?”_ _

__Cody took another step closer to the bed, but stopped when Twenty-Three looked up. His eyes were wide; he blinked, and brought up his hand to rub his knuckles on his cheek. The youngling hadn’t even chosen a tattoo yet._ _

__Cody nodded. “Medics are always right,” he said. “I’ll bet Rivet told you the same thing.”_ _

__Twenty-Three touched the bruise on his head. “Yes, sir,” he whispered._ _

__The air filters whirred around him. Cody heard Kix close the top of the medpak and open a new one. Twenty-Three’s hand disappeared underneath the blanket and clenched into a fist. He shuddered. Cody shifted on his feet; his shoulders ached. He put his hand on Twenty-Three’s shoulder. Twenty-Three froze._ _

__“And everybody knows what a bad idea it is to cross one medic, much less Rivet,” Cody said. He kept his helmet tilted to the right. “You can stay in the medbay as long as you need to.”_ _

__Twenty-Three breathed in and nodded several times in quick jerks of his head. “Commander Tano doesn’t like the medbay, sir,” he said. “Does she?”_ _

__Cody wavered and then stepped closer. He wrapped his arm around Twenty-Three’s shoulders and closed his eyes when Twenty-Three leaned into his cuirass. His throat clenched._ _

__“No, she doesn’t,” Cody said._ _

__“Padawan Athonjo did,” Twenty-Three said flatly. Cody felt him bang his head lightly against his plate._ _

__“Stop that,” he said, and touched his other hand briefly to the top of Twenty-Three’s head. “You’re going to make your concussion worse.”_ _

__

__Twenty-Three snorted and settled his head against Cody's side. Cody held him and waited, watching as Twenty-Three rubbed his hand up and down his own thigh and picked at the black fabric of his bodyglove._ _

__“Zie made me quiz hir before hir tests,” Twenty-Three said, eventually. “Zie used to track me down on patrol so I could quiz hir._ _

__“I didn’t know about that,” Cody said._ _

__Twenty-Three shrugged against him. “Zie said you wouldn’t mind because I was still in rotation. I was good at xeno-anatomy, I mean…that’s what zie said.”_ _

__Cody pressed his lips together. He readjusted his arm around Twenty-Three’s back. “Well, then it must be true,” he said. “Nobody knew a karking body like hir, huh?”_ _

__“Especially if it was swearing at hir in mando’a,” Twenty-Three said, and hiccupped. “Zie made me teach hir all the words and then Sergeant Tor made me run twenty laps around the multi-gym for it.”_ _

__“I remember that,” Cody said quietly. He closed his eyes and saw the image of Twenty-Three with his head down and a tiny Verpine keeping pace by his side, chittering away with zir antennae bouncing in the air. Athonjo had loved to talk about everything; zie would carry on the conversation hirself if you let hir. Tan-Oshi had indulged hir. Cody ground his teeth and swallowed._ _

__“Zie made me tea,” Twenty-Three said. “To say thank you.”_ _

__Twenty-Three twisted in his grip, moving closer even though Cody’s plates had to be digging into him; his hands clenched in his lap. Cody shook his head, but stopped himself before Twenty-Three could see. He looked up at the ceiling tiles and rubbed Twenty-Three’s shoulder. He didn’t know what to say. What was there to say?_ _

__“I didn’t know what was happening,” Twenty-Three spit out, and shook himself once, hard. “We were running and it—zie kept saying it was all right to—to stop, but we _couldn’t_ and zie kept blocking our shots and then—I was in the back, but then zie was in the airlock and I knew we had our orders, but—”_ _

__“I’m really sorry, sir,” Twenty-Three whispered. “Ba’vodu’s going to be so angry. I’m so sorry.”_ _

__“No, he won’t,” Cody said, and cleared his throat. “No one is angry at you, all right?”_ _

__He opened his eyes and glanced up over Twenty-Three’s bare head; he saw Kix watching them. His forehead was pinched, and lines were carved alongside his frown. Kix’s tsad’ika was on Coruscant, which meant his man was in the Temple. Kix looked away._ _

__Cody’s stomach flipped. There were thousands of Jedi murdered, on more planets than Cody could name, and it didn’t matter how it had happened. If Cody had been a Jedi, he wouldn’t wait for an explanation the next time he saw a trooper, unarmed or otherwise._ _

__The datapad pinged quietly to his right. Rex wanted his blasted attention again._ _

__“I want you to stay here, Trooper,” Cody said slowly, and drew his hand up and down Twenty-Three’s shoulder. “I’m officially agreeing with medical advice and placing you on medical leave until further notice.” He raised his voice. “Kix will monitor your progress, and report back to me.”_ _

__He stared across the medbay until he saw Kix look up and nod. Twenty-Three shuddered and pulled back. Cody let go as Twenty-Three sat up and raised his head. He wiped his face with his left sleeve and cleared his throat._ _

__“Why don’t you lie down again,” Cody said. He stood away from the biobed and kept his helmet tilted to the right. “Sleep’s the best thing for you.”_ _

__“I don’t think I can sleep, sir,” Twenty-Three said. His nose scrunched as he settled back down. “It’s…I didn’t like dreaming, but it’s weird not to anymore.”_ _

__“Just close your eyes,” Cody said, lowering his voice._ _

__Twenty-Three nodded and obeyed. He pulled the blanket and the Jedi’s robe over his legs. His hands clenched in his blankets._ _

__“Will someone wake me up when you find the general?” Twenty-Three asked._ _

__Cody paused. “Yes,” he finally said. “When we find the general.”_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mandolorian:
> 
> Agol [Ah-gohl]: Meat
> 
> Cod’ika [Koh-dee-kah] : _lit._ ‘Lil’ Cody.’ _fig._ ‘ika’ is an dimunitive addition, denoting familiarity/personal relationship or affection.
> 
> “Copaani mirshmure'cye? [Koh-PAH-nee MEERSH-moo-RAY-shay]: You wanna get punched in the face?”
> 
> “Clon’ad draar digu” [Clohn-Ahd drahr dee-GOO]: Clones never forget.
> 
> Tsad’ika [T- sahd-ee-kah]: _lit._ ‘Little Alliance.’ _Fig._ 1\. An alliance or group comprised of familial or affectionate bonds outside or within a larger clan. 2. ( _Kaminoan_ ) A pairing or grouping, often connoting a sexual relationship, recognized informally within the larger command structure of Jango Fett-based clones. 3. An affectionate alliance.
> 
> Scran [Skah-ran]: Food
> 
> Aurebesh:
> 
> Jenth [Jenn-th]: J
> 
> Aruek [Auhr-Eck]: A
> 
> Osk [Oh-sk]: O


	6. Chapter 6

Cody couldn’t stop himself from wincing at the thud of his boots on the _Arrow’s_ deck tiles as he walked. Rex had pinged him twice more on the tablet since he’d left Twenty-Three, which was about as many circuits as he’d done on the mid-ship storage and crew level. Cody looked down at his datapad and tapped the surface, hard. If Rex was only trying to get him on the bridge to be his own private calculator while Commander Tano floated at chest-height past an empty viewport, they were going to have another karking discussion on the rights and responsibilities of command. Cody’s chest felt heavy. 

Rex pinged him again. Cody jabbed the alert bar to cut it off mid-flash. Up ahead, he could see the mid-ship elevator shaft, flanked by branching hallways to either side. The hall had three unmarked doorways; most of this section was probably given over to maintenance storage, since the crew complement was too small to have taken over every inch. He glanced at the elevator again, and tapped the datapad against his thigh. He closed his right hand around the butt of his WESTAR-34 and felt it shake. Blast it.

He shook his head sharply and began walking again. He was no use to anyone like this, Force take it. Rex clearly needed him on the bridge, and there Cody was dragging his ass up and down the mid-ship levels like a kriffing droideka. He needed to focus. It would be fine. Commander Tano was up there, working her montrals raw, and Rex needed him firing with all thrusters. Maybe…maybe the Commander had finally found his di’kutla kriffing general. He flexed his grip on his pistol. His armored fingers clicked against each other.

 

***

 

The datapad announced they’d slipped into one of the outermost local trade routes, spinward towards Kraal, when Cody stepped out of the elevator. He held it in front of him at chest height as he walked over to and then through the doorway leading to the bridge. He felt his shoulder blades draw back; the space between them ached. 

Ahead of him, Commander Tano levitated in front of the empty star field showing through the front viewport. Her central banded montral swayed down her back in time with her breathing. Rivet, standing next to her, looked up and saluted. Cody nodded at him. The brothers from the 501st on deck had their backs to him, working quietly. Rex stood by the comms station, pointing at something over Eighty-One’s shoulder. Eighty-One nodded and pressed his hand over the earpiece of his headset. 

Cody tapped his fingers against his sidearm holster, thumb to pinkie and back again. He moved further in to allow the door to close.

Rex patted Eighty-One on his shoulder and turned around, resting his hands on his blasters. “Cody,” he said, and smiled with his lips pressed together. “Took you long enough.”

“Your math skills were making me worry.”

Cody moved closer to Rex, keeping his back to the wall of the bridge. He flexed his biceps and shrugged to resettle the armor plates against the high density weave of his body glove. Scout armor was at least twenty pounds lighter than Sky Corps’ general issue, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that his armor wasn’t strapped down tightly enough. 

Rex walked to him, stopping close by Cody’s elbow. He rubbed his thumb over the scar on his cheek, and settled back on his heels. 

“Look, there’s something—” Rex began.

Footsteps thudded on the deck to their left, and Cody jerked his head around, hand clasping his sidearm. Commander Tano was standing again; she held her arms out to her side as Rivet ticked questions off on his datapad. She shook her head and went up on her tiptoes to stretch. The temperature dropped ten degrees on Cody’s HUD. She shivered.

Rex cleared his throat. Cody turned back around. “I was worried you’d broken the karking navicomputer,” Cody said.

He handed Rex his datapad. Rex rolled his eyes as he took it, and waggled his head, currently covered in dense black bristles. Looked like he hadn’t stocked up on bleach before he’d shipped out for…for what? He’d never said. 

“Just keeping you on your toes,” Rex said. “Nice to see you’ve still got that calculator in the upper decks.” 

“Is that why you messaged me twice whenever I stopped to piss?”

“Oh, like you can’t type one-handed.”

Cody snorted. Rex narrowed his eyes. He opened his mouth, and then glanced out over the bridge. “You’ve not too hot in that bucket, vod?” he asked.

Cody flexed his jaw. “Just fine, thanks.”

Rex nodded Rex nodded; his Adam’s Apple bobbed as he swallowed. He turned around and walked over to lay Cody’s datapad on top of the comms console. He swiveled back and took a deep breath. “I’m glad you got up here when you did, there’s—”

“Zeer and Corporal Juri are on their final approach, Captain,” Eighty-One announced. “Should have a report in a couple of minutes.”

“Echuta,” Rex muttered.

Cody looked over Rex’s shoulder to Eighty-One, and then to the front viewport. He walked to the middle of the bridge, closer to the Commander. “What’s going on?” 

“I was getting to that,” Rex said, following him. He put his hand on Cody’s shoulder, stopping them both, and straightened when Commander Tano turned towards them. Cody clasped his hands behind his back.

“Eighty-One, route their next report through the bridge speakers,” Rex said.

“Sir,” Eighty-One said. 

Cody cocked his head. Commander Tano was looking at the datapad Rivet held in front of her. He could see her hands shaking.

“Del, call up sector 3.5, Cresh, Senth,” Rex called out. 

“Cresh, Senth, yes, sir,” the brother at the helm replied. Cody heard typing. 

Cody narrowed his eyes. “And just what am I going to see at those coordinates?” 

Rex sighed. He pushed Cody a little closer to the front viewport and then lifted his hand away from Cody’s pauldron. Cody cleared his throat and tightened his grip on his own hands. 

“I wanted to tell you before anything came up,” Rex said quietly, “but we’re exposed out here, and we can’t waste time.”

A short burst of static crackled over the comms. Cody frowned. He looked from Rex to Tano to the viewport. 

His stomach clenched. “What is it? What’s happened?” 

“Zeer to _Arrow’s Compass,_ ” a man said. He sounded distracted. “We’re attaching the tow cabling now.”

“I’m seeing some carbon scoring that indicates our fighters got past the shielding…looks like it cracked the transparisteel,” Juri said. He hiccupped, and then cleared his throat. “The emergency sealant’s done its job, but it means I can’t confirm Ba’Vodu’s inside.”

“ _What?”_ Cody barked out. 

The word rang out across the silent bridge and then rebounded. Cody’s stomach turned over.

“Sorry, Commander,” Juri said. “I meant General Kenobi. Shouldn’t be more than a couple of minutes now, sir.”

“Eighty-One, cut the feed,” Cody said. His hands fell to his sides and clenched into fists. He saw Rex nod next to him. 

“Cut, sir,” Eighty-One said.

Cody pointed at the viewport. “What are they attaching tow cables to?” he asked.

Commander Tano stepped into his sightline, forcing Cody to drop his arm back down, and raised both of her hands. “We’ve found General Grievous’ shuttle,” she said.

He stared down at her; she had lines at either side of her pursed mouth. He swallowed and shook his head.

“It—what?” he coughed. “You what?”

Commander Tano stepped to his immediate left, wide-eyed. Rivet moved forward with his datapad clutched in both hands. She looked past Cody to Rex, and then back to Cody. She raised her spread hands, showing her gloved palms.

“We found the shuttle, Cody,” she said, a little more softly. Her eyebrows drew together.

The viewport loomed above her. Cody looked at the stars shining in through the transparisteel panels, at all the parsecs of empty space. His vision blurred at the edges, and he opened his eyes wider.

“How—” he cleared his throat. The air filters in his helmet didn’t seem to be working. He felt hot. “How long have you known? When did you find this?”

All those calculations Rex had sent him, and Cody had never suspected they were actually following a _trail_. Obi-Wan was in that shuttle. He slid between Rex and Tano and walked to the pilot’s seat.

The sector outlined in green on the viewport was still too far out for a clear picture. Juri and Zeer’s call signs marked their positions on the starscape, with the shuttle a black dot outlined in blue. They’d cracked the cockpit on the General’s shuttle.

“Bring up the specs on General Kenobi’s shuttle,” Cody said.

“Yes, sir,” the brother—Del—said. He nodded, and the lumas bounced across his tattooed scalp. 

“Uh, Commander Cody,” Tano said. “There’s something we need to talk to you about before…oh, kark it.”

A section inside the previously enhanced screen view outlined itself in a thick blue line and zoomed inwards. Cody gripped the back of the Del’s seat. He swallowed, and chewed on his lower lip. The enlarged starscape grew until it filled half the viewport. The onboard computer poured a wave of coordinates and sensor data down the side.

“What’s my corporal doing out there?” Cody asked, without turning around. The spec data was listing the ship’s intake information.

“He volunteered,” Rex said. “Vod, I’m going to need you to take a step back.”

Onscreen, the last known sensor data came up. Ice flashed down the length of Cody’s spine. He rocked back on his heels.

“It’s drifting,” he said, and heard someone sigh. “It’s drifting,” he repeated. “Why is it— _osik._ Del, bring up the full specs. How long have we been heading for this?” He stabbed his finger towards the viewport and stumbled backwards to stare at Rex and Tano. “Why wasn’t I informed?”

“I kept you updated,” Rex said, his hands raised. “I was trying to get you up here.”

“I think I would have karking remembered you telling me we found the karking shuttle!”

Which was drifting in space on a deserted stretch of commercial lane. The scanners showed that the engines were colder than a Talz’s blasted nose. There weren’t many ships this far out, and none that would have stopped to tow in a military grade shuttle with that much carbon scoring across the hull. 

“Juri and Zeer report that the cables are attached,” Eighty-One said quietly. “We should be recovering…” he trailed away.

“Activating tow cabling,” Del said, reaching across his piloting panel.

Cody shook his head. “Have you made contact with the General?”

Just because Juri couldn’t see Obi-Wan didn’t mean he wasn’t in there; he could be meditating, he could be asleep, he could be… The bridge was silent again; Rex and Tano glanced at each other. Cody rested his hand on his sidearm. The muscles along his spine to his neck seized into a solid block of tension so quickly that the back of his head throbbed. Tano bit her lower lip.

“Cody, I haven’t been following Master Obi-Wan’s Force signature to get here,” Tano said.

Cody clenched his jaw. All of his muscles seemed to be locking down, radiating out from his spine and shoving his stomach downward. He shivered.

Rex closed his eyes and rubbed his hands over his face. “I was hoping for a better time to say that, sir,” he said.

Tano sighed. Her forehead markings crinkled as her eyebrows drew together. Behind her, Rivet clutched his datapad and wouldn’t meet Cody’s eyes.

Cody took a deep breath. “Rivet, is there a karking gas leak on this osik’la barge?”

“Sir, I…” Rivet began. He stepped forward and then stopped. He swallowed heavily, making his tattoos bulge. “Commander Tano has been Searching for hours, sir. I’ve been monitoring her the entire time.”

“Well, run a deeper scan,” Cody snapped. “Because it looks like the Captain and the padawan here have huffed themselves out of their Force-addled minds! Empty Meditation to find the General…I should have known it wouldn’t work.”

He put his hands on his hips. It had never helped Obi-Wan, it had never made him better, it had made him _forget._ It took him away and drowned him until all he could feel was the pressure of the Force.

Tano frowned. “What do you know about that?” she asked.

“Cody, that’s enough,” Rex said over her. “You’re out of line.” 

“Is that so,” Cody said, and stepped towards him. “If we’re not going after my damn general than who the karking hell are we searching for?”

“General Grievous,” Tano said, flatly.

Cody turned his head. Tano stared at him. The tips of her montrals vibrated. He felt his shoulders rise and fall with the force of his own breath.

He blinked. “What?”

“It’s Grievous’ shuttle,” she said, and jerked her thumb towards the viewport. “He’s had it for so long he’s…made an impression on it—sort of—in the Force. It wasn’t a very powerful signature, since the shuttle isn’t alive, but it was enough to get us here.”

“After awhile,” Rivet muttered.

“Then why not General Kenobi?” Cody asked. “He’s actually karking _in there_.”

He looked out the viewport. Obi-Wan was in that shuttle. 

Tano breathed out, and Cody turned his head in time to see that she was looking outside as well. Cody felt heavy, like weights in his joints were pulling him towards the deck. He wanted to sit down. He winced and straightened his back against the urge.

She cleared her throat. “I haven’t been able to find Master Obi-Wan within the Force.”

The world stopped, and Cody kept breathing. He could hear nothing but the quick inhalations of his own lungs. Cold crept up the front of his chest, tracing spidery lines along his veins and into his heart. Tano said something; he couldn’t hear her.

He stepped backwards, and Tano and Rex followed. He banged the heel of his palm against his bucket, and the sounds on the bridge came rushing back.

“What does that mean?” he asked, over the typing and the hushed comm chatter from the brothers on EVA.

“It could be nothing,” Rex said.

Cody shook his head. Tano was frowning. She had her hands out again.

“With everything happening,” she paused and took a deep breath. “Cody, the Force is…it’s like a blizzard wrapped in an ion storm.” She stared directly into his visor. He could see her hands shaking. “Master Obi-Wan has always been a huge presence in the Force, but with so much disorder right now I can’t pinpoint anyone very well or very far.”

Tano stopped. She closed her eyes, her mouth crumpled at the edges, and she blinked her eyes open again. He watched her pull that damned Jedi calm around her like a blanket.

“But with your information,” she continued, “I was able to find the shuttle, and if we were on his trail and I can’t find him here…”

She shrugged and looked behind her to the viewport again. Cody felt pressure on his back; Rex was touching him.

“We’re towing the shuttle closer, and then we’ll be able to confirm,” Rex said, like Cody was some karking shiny. 

Cody looked at the enhanced imagery in the viewport. Grievous’ shuttle was drifting in open space with cold engines. 

He shook his head. “It’s empty.”

He felt Rex tug the back of his cuirass. “Cody.”

“It’s empty,” Cody repeated. “He must have stowed away on a passing freighter. Dump the navicomputer and let’s get moving.”

“Commander Cody,” Rivet said. 

“I said, let’s get moving.”

Rex pulled on his cuirass again. “Vod,” he said, and Cody leaned back. Rex slung his arm around his back. “They won’t have it within range for another thirty minutes. Let’s give the men some time to set up the download. Come and…come and help plan our next move.”

Which would be following whatever ship Obi-Wan had docked with. Cody looked back to the shuttle outlined in the scanners’ array. Del had his head bent over his piloting controls. Tano was looking at Del; her lips were pressed together so hard that her skin was beige at the corners of her mouth. Rivet frowned at his datapad. 

“It’s empty,” Cody said. “He won’t be there.”

Tano nodded slowly, studying him with wary eyes.

“I would know,” Cody said, leaning towards her.

She frowned, and then Rex pulled him back. Cody shrugged himself free. Rex raised his eyebrows and inclined his head towards Tano. Cody waggled his helmet. Barely anyone had known about Obi-Wan and him, but she was General Skywalker’s blasted padawan; no one could be around him and Senator Amidala without catching on fast.

“Cody, come on,” Rex said.

Cody tilted his head to the side to crack his neck. “Right,” he said.

He stepped away from Rivet and Tano, brushed past Rex, and smacked the entry button to open the door off the bridge. He could see Eighty-One watching him as he stepped over the threshold, and heard Rex’s footsteps as he caught up.

A buzz grew in Cody’s ears like an ion lathe at the base of his skull.

“Gar liniba haalur, Cody,” Rex said. 

“Tion gar jurkadin ti ni, _Rex_?”

Cody grit his teeth and sped up, went past the elevator and into the long access corridor connecting the barrel-shaped prow of the _Arrow_ with the rest of the ship. He heard Rex hurry to keep up with him, and ducked his head down.

“Where are you going?” Rex called out.

“I don’t know!” Cody said, throwing up his hands. “What the karking blasted— _stang!_ ”

He turned on his heel and marched back towards the bridge; Rex stopped in his tracks and held both hands up in front of him. Cody pivoted and retraced his steps. He smacked his right palm against the curved bulkhead above him. 

“What blasted good is a padawan who can’t even find a Master Jedi?” he yelled. He faced Rex. “What’s the karking point?”

“You don’t talk about Commander Tano like that,” Rex spit out, striding closer. “She’s doing the best she can, just like all of us are!”

“Then it’s not good enough! She—”

“Found the damn shuttle the general escaped in after _you_ tried to kill him!” Rex jabbed his pointer finger against Cody’s cuirass. “She’s our only link to the Force, and the only reason any of us have a hope of getting close to a Jedi without getting our blasted shebs shot off! And when we crack the cockpit and find the General—”

Cody threw off Rex’s hand and stepped up. “He’s not dead,” he said.

Rex narrowed his eyes. “It’s not like you haven’t held his funeral before,” he said.

Cody’s eyesight shivered and dimmed down to points. He pushed off the floor with his toes and rushed straight for Rex, crashing dead center into Rex’s chest. They slammed into the wall with a bang, and Rex grabbed him by the biceps with both hands. His leg skittered between Cody’s and then around the back of his left knee, but Cody leaned harder against him for balance.

“We do not,” Cody reared back and shoved Rex against the wall again. They lurched sideways, and Rex unhooked his leg to keep his balance. “ _talk_ about that!”

In his mind’s eye the line of brothers stretched out in the hangar again, reciting an Hour of Remembrance Cody was too drunk to mumble through, with Boil pretending he wasn’t keeping his commanding officer upright at his side. The 212th hadn’t been allowed on Temple grounds to see the body burnt. Cody hadn’t even been allowed to see the corpse; he’d been _informed_ via an official Temple missive. And none of it had karking mattered, because Obi-Wan had come back, and everything had been _fine_ again. Cody tightened his grip, hands slipping upwards.

“Stop it, just stop it!” Rex yelled. Cody felt the pressure on his arm plates increase as Rex braced himself. “You think you’re the only one who’s lost a Jedi? You think I don’t know General Skywalker’s out there _right now_ without me to watch his back?”

Cody’s breath blew hot in his helmet and he could feel condensation against his lips. He shook his head. Rex’s mouth pulled back from his teeth, his upper lip curled.

“Just because I’m not karking my Jedi doesn’t mean I don’t want to hide on the lower decks, too, but I _can’t._ ”

Cody snorted. He blinked rapidly to clear his vision, and felt something like sweat on his cheeks. He pushed off of Rex and wobbled backwards.

“We didn’t tell you we’d found the shuttle because we didn’t have confirmation until that last jump,” Commander Tano said.

They both stiffened. Rex came off the wall, and Cody’s arms went behind his back, both fists clenched. He tilted his head to the left as the Commander walked into view. She had her chin raised, and as she walked her fingers just brushed the hilts of her lightsabers. 

“Was I the only one at the Temple trying to keep to the Code?” she asked, and Cody startled. She’d _heard._ She met his eyes and smiled with only one corner of her mouth. 

He swallowed and looked away, trying to get his shaking breath under control. Where was the karking stillness at his center now? He swallowed again. 

“Sorry, sir,” he said through stiff lips. “No excuses, sir.”

Commander Tano shook her head. She came to a stop in front of him and Rex and shrugged, and Rex stepped towards her, close enough to touch. His hands were at his back, too.

“I hardly outrank you now,” she said, finally. “I’m just Ahsoka Tano. And I’m sorry I can’t find your general for you.”

Cody stepped back. “It’s not—I didn’t—” He cut himself off. He felt heavy all of a sudden; his jaw ached, and he had to make a conscious effort to relax it. A light brush drifted across his mind, like someone taking him by the hand. He glanced up and found Commander Tano watching him.

“Not many people can feel that, you know,” she said. “Or, if they can, they don’t know what it is. But I guess you’ve had practice.”

Cody twitched. She nodded. Rex looked between them. 

“I’m worried about Sky Guy, too, you know,” she said softly. “I can’t feel him, either. But we have to keep going, because what I do feel is that where there’s one annoying know-it-all master, there’s another.”

“You sense that General Kenobi and General Skywalker are together?” Rex asked.

Tano shook her head. “I think when we find one, we’ll be led to the other,” she said. “The Force is...almost too loud to be understood right now, but I don’t need to be on the Council to feel that. If Master Obi-Wan isn’t aboard Grevious’ shuttle, we’ll be…”

She trailed off and looked to the side. Her eyes narrowed at the deck plates, and the temperature picked up by three degrees. Cody glanced at Rex, who frowned.

Rex stepped closer to him. “I’ve been trying to get you up on the bridge since she started giving Del coordinates,” he said, quietly. “I didn’t want to say anything over the messenger until we were close enough to confirm.”

Cody nodded. 

“Take your bucket off,” Rex said.

“No.”

Rex looked down at his feet. Cody’s throat felt tight.

What had been the karking point? Where was the kriffing sense in dragging the men off the _Vigilance_ if Obi-Wan was—of course, Obi-Wan wasn’t in that shuttle. He’d probably conned his way onto a spice freighter; they got everywhere. He was probably halfway to Kraal already, just like Cody had thought.

“We’re wasting time,” Cody said. 

“I’m sorry,” Rex said. “We still need the logs from the shuttle.”

“I know that,” Cody snapped.

It was all right for him. Rex already _had_ his Jedi, or one of them. Cody had—Cody had failed all of his. He touched the butt of his sidearm, and Rex grabbed his wrist.

Cody clenched the pistol grip reflexively. He looked up and met Rex’s eyes, and he slowly opened his hand. The temperature rose on his HUD. He glanced over and saw the Commander’s montrals twitch as she focused on whatever the Force had kicked up to get her attention. Rex tightened his grip.

“What were you even doing in the Outer Rim?” Cody muttered. 

“General Skywalker ordered it,” Rex said. “I don’t know how he got the funding for the ship, but all he told me was that he had big news, and needed to find Ahsoka.”

Cody’s eyes felt hot. He blinked rapidly and nodded. “What news?” he asked, more loudly.

“Not a kriffing clue,” Rex said. “He seemed excited, but he said he wasn’t going to tell me until he had everyone together.”

Cody snorted. Typical Jedi. Everything was a karking mystery.

Rex sighed. “Maybe it was another one of his dreams. You know how they are.”

Cody shrugged. Next to him, Tano sucked in a huge lungful of air, and laced her fingers together in front of her. She cracked her knuckles and shook her head. 

“I need to be at the central airlock,” she said. “Is Boil still down in the hold?”

“Last time I checked he was two levels up,” Rex said.

She nodded quickly. “Good,” she said. “I think…I think I need to be alone down there.”

She was already focusing on something Cody couldn’t see, with the patient, distracted air that Jedi got when the Force was pushing at them. Cody swallowed. His chest ached.

“I am sorry, sir,” he said.

Tano tilted her head up at him. “Do you know what I’ve learned out here, Commander?” she asked. “Anger isn’t as straightforward as they teach in the Temple, and it’s not always directed at the people who deserve it, but it’s all right to feel it.” She paused and rested both hands on her belt, right up against the hilts of her lightsabers. “And funnily enough, I’m pretty angry myself right now.”

He saw Rex stiffen and raise his hand. Commander Tano waved him off; she shook her head slightly. 

“So how about we’ll both be angry together,” she continued, “and forgive each other now, so the next chance we get, we can beat the stang out of the bastard who did this to our people.”

She raised her eyebrows, scrunching the lengthening white stripes of her markings. Cody clenched his jaw and nodded, and she nodded back. He held still next to Rex as Tano walked away, probably towards the bridge elevator. When she was out of sight, Cody placed both hands behind his back and clenched his right wrist in his left hand. 

“I just thought…” Rex said finally. “I couldn’t get you to respond.”

“So you tell my karking men before me?” Cody asked. “That’s completely out of line.”

“The only people who know were on the bridge when the shuttle came on our sensors. You were in the Medbay, what was I supposed to do? Drag you out?”

Cody frowned. 

“How’s Twenty-Three?” Rex asked.

“He’s sleeping,” Cody said. “He’ll be fine. You telling me Boil didn’t know about this?” 

Rex snorted. “You think I’d be able to get Boil to keep something like this from you?”

Cody closed his eyes and took three deep breaths, counting off each one in his head. “Right,” he said at last. “I need to find my sergeant.”

 

***

 

Cody swallowed heavily as he stepped across the threshold into the crew’s quarters. Boil, Trip-Sevens, and Snag were grouped together at the opposite end of the bunkhouse, sitting opposite each other on two bottom bunks. They stood as he and Rex approached, and Boil stepped in front.

“Commander?” he asked.

“At ease,” Cody said.

He looked at them. The mission was to find his general and the closest he’d come so far was the possibility of retrieving his corpse. He hadn’t incited a mutiny for that. Obi-Wan couldn’t die. All across the galaxy, the Jedi were being murdered by his brothers, who couldn’t even trust their own minds. They were supposed to march together, Jedi and clones. Cody clenched his hands together behind his back. It was like a sick mirrored nightmare of the Umbara campaign.

Boil stepped forward and cleared his throat. “Actually, sir,” he said. “I was just about to comm you. I was hoping to speak with you.”

“Trip-Sevens told us Twenty-Three was asking about you,” Snag said.

“I saw him when Rivet made me give Kix his hardware back,” Trip-Sevens added.

Trip-Sevens was chewing the end of a deactivated vibroscalpel, and Snag was leaning against his shoulder. Cody tilted his head to the left, frowning, and Trip-Sevens whipped the hilt out of his mouth and hid the vibroscalpel behind his back. Snag stood straight and rubbed his hand over the scars bursting over his chin and lips to his nose. They looked tired.

“And Juri said he had to go, but it’d been poking at him since we left the _Vigilance_ , so—”

"So we thought you should know, just in case getting the chip out scrambled what was left of his wires," Trip-Sevens said.

Snag elbowed him. " _Vod_. We were gonna leave that part out!" 

Boil cleared his throat. "What the vod'e are trying to say, Commander Cody, is that we'd all just like you to know..." 

He stopped speaking and cleared his throat again. His shoulders twitched. "Look, sir, this wasn't my idea," he said. "And I'd appreciate it if after this, we all agreed to never listen to Juri again."

Cody tugged on the front of his helmet. "What's Juri—no, never mind. Boil, stow the announcement for a second," he said. He squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them again. "There's been an update." 

Boil straightened out of his slump. "Sir?”

Cody looked at Snag and Trip-Sevens over Boil's shoulder, then let his eyesight drift above their heads. He heard Rex shift beside him, and settled his own weight onto his heels. He felt a little light-headed, as if being angry at Rex and the Commander had used up whatever energy he'd had left; now it was all he could do not to fold down into one of the crew bunks and sleep for a solid year or three. His head ached.

“Sarge," Snag said, still whispering too loudly. "Rivet said—”

"I know what Rivet blasted said," Boil said, and glared over his shoulder. He sighed. "Look, Commander, I'm sorry about this—and I would like it on the record that I was formally out-voted—"

"Rivet yelled," Trip-Sevens interrupted. He and Snag were leaning on each other again.

"Formally _out-voted_ ," Boil repeated more loudly. "If this update can wait for five minutes, sir, what I have to say isn't work-related, but it is...sensitive." He grimaced. "And as the oldest ranking non-com in the 212th aboard the _Arrow's Compass_ , I request to be heard."

Cody glanced at Rex, who shrugged. Cody shrugged back. He coughed to see if that shook his chest out of tightening. "All right." 

The General's ship was still being towed in to the hold anyway. He could afford to concentrate on something else. Maybe even something fixable.

"Commander," Boil began, staring into space. 

"Boil," Cody said. He raised his eyebrows and tilted his helmet backward. 

"Remember what Rivet said about his mental state," Snag said.

" _What?_ " Cody asked.

"All right!" Boil said and put his hands in the air. "Commander Cody, may I speak with you in the hallway, sir?"

"Aw, monkey-lizards," Trip-Sevens muttered.

Rex moved further into the room. "How about I keep the men company while you speak to Boil?" he asked. "We'll wait for you."

Cody nodded slowly. "All right."

He turned around and walked out the door and into the hallway. Boil stepped out after him. Cody watched him bring his hand up to the bandages on his face.

"Don't scratch," he said automatically.

Boil dropped his hand back down. "A little scratching doesn't hurt anything," he said.

"It doesn't help, either," Cody said. "I'd rather not have you keel over with a blood infection right now, thanks. Now, what is so karking important that you have to care about my 'mental state?’”

Boil winced. "Sorry about that, sir," he said. "You know how Snag is with words."

"On the whole, he's better off just shooting first."

Boil snorted and crossed his arms. He met Cody's gaze, then looked away. "Just to say, sir, I didn't want to bring this up, but as the ranking non-com—”

"No, you aren't."

"Rivet's three months younger," Boil said. "He got the full..." he circled his left hand in the air. "Whatever you call it, the full medic brain dump."

"I'm sure that's what the Kaminoans call it, too," Cody said.

Boil shrugged. "They didn't give it to me, sir," he said. "I'm just an old scout. We're lucky, not smart."

Cody sighed. "Boil, why am I out here?" he asked.

The deckplates shook beneath their feet, just enough vibration to be noticeable. Cody shifted his weight from his left foot to his right. Were they opening the hull doors already? How fast were they working?

Boil took a deep breath, and shrugged hard. He groaned. "Sorry, sir, it's these damn borrowed plates. I keep thinking I've forgotten pieces of my gear." He looked up and down the empty hallway. "Look, Kix told Rivet that Twenty-Three was up and asking for you, while Rivet was up on the bridge with Juri, and you know Juri, sir. He can't get a thought out of his head once it's synced up. Then he got the younger ones excited and it turned into this."

Cody clenched his left hand into a fist and carefully pressed it into his thigh guard. "What exactly has Juri been telling you?" 

Boil frowned. "Nothing much more than Twenty-Three, sir," he said. "Haven't heard from him for awhile now, though."

Cody nodded slowly. "So you've been planning whatever this is for how long?" 

"More like they were trying to figure out whether to bring it to me or not, and then convincing me that it was worth bringing it to you. I was going to let it go, sir, since we were all off our heads at the time, not just the shiny, but I was...planning on seeing if I could have a word before Rivet sent the vod'e to track me down in the hold anyway."

"And what _is_ it?"

Boil grimaced. "Commander." He came to attention, readjusted his pauldrons, and shifted his weight back and forth on his feet. "Sir, the men just want you to know that they hope you aren't taking anything Twenty-Three said back on the _Vigilance_ to...you know..." he circled his hand in the air. "To heart."

Cody leaned back and tugged on his helmet. "What?"

The shiny was practically curled up _beneath_ his biobed instead of on it, and Cody was supposed to worry about being shouted at when the entire GAR was falling apart and _General Grevious's_ shuttle was being towed inside the _Arrow's_ hold as they were speaking? 

Boil scratched the edge of the bandage across his cheek.

"Stop that," Cody said. "What did Twenty-Three say?"

Boil frowned and dropped his hand back down again. "Uh." He coughed. "Stang, um, just about...sir, I don't like these sorts of conversations, but we're stuck talking because if I come back in too soon Trip-Sevens will splash to Rivet that I wasn't making myself 'available,' whatever that karking means, so I'm just going to go with what I'd planned--"

"Boil, I am not in the mood for whatever hyperspace mirage Adenn squad's cooked up in their downtime."

Cody shook his head, but Boil took a deep breath and kicked off. "I—we, really—want you to know we're on your side. And the General's side, when we find him. Twenty-Three was just trying to get a rise out of you with all that yelling about your Creation Debt. No one really thinks Kenobi's the kind of Jedi to demand that sort of service from a man, or that you'd be the sort to let it happen, Jedi or no.”

Oh. That. Cody sighed and watched Boil start to fidget. As if he’d had the karking time to think about desperate shinies trying to goad him with bunk room cross-chatter. 

“No, he wouldn’t,” Cody said.

He’d expected to take orders, to serve the Republic, to be led by great beings who walked with one foot in a world Cody could only imagine. He hadn’t expected to be listened to, debated with, as if his mind was as important as his body to the war effort. Obi-Wan was beautiful when he argued; that had been Cody’s first non-regulation impression of his Jedi.

"The General is a great man," Cody said. It hurt to push his voice out of his dry throat. "And I—"

Even the possibility of Obi-Wan taking advantage had nearly scuttled them before they’d begun. Obi-Wan had been so blastershy, and Cody hadn’t wanted to damage his general’s reputation in any way.

“You’re mistaken, Boil,” Cody said, stiffly. "There was nothing to apologize about."

"Sir, you're pretty smart for an officer, but you can't fool a dar'iduur," Boil said. He cleared his throat as he glanced over his shoulder. "For the record, Waxer thought you were good for each other." 

Boil met Cody's eyes calmly, like he could see straight through the visor. Cody opened his mouth, hesitated, and closed it again. He tugged on his helmet and felt a trickle of sweat curl down the curve of his bare scalp. The luma panels flared in his vision before settling back down to their previous level. The corridor's deck plating vibrated beneath his feet.

"Yes, well," he said. 

“I thought I’d die when he didn’t come back from that sortie on Umbara,” Boil continued. “Figured since the Jedi say we all go back to the Force that I’d better hurry up and meet him there before he got lonely.”

Cody inhaled sharply. “Boil, that’s not—”

“I know, I know, Commander,” Boil said. He shrugged. “It was only a thought. Then you put me in charge of his squad and what was I going to do with that? He would have kicked like a gundark with a sore tooth if I’d let Trip-Sevens go around unsupervised.”

“It was the General’s idea,” Cody said. He shook his head and felt his breath turn cold in his mouth. Obi-Wan had brought it up to him on the deck, during a sweep near the Mandalore system.

Boil nodded. "Waxer made me drag a little twi'lek across a battlefield," he said suddenly, still blasted _looking_ at him. His eyes seemed a little too bright. "Remember that? That's when I knew it was me and Waxer until the tide took us under. I mean, when did I ever have to explain what the hell I was doing in an AO unless he'd made me act like a karking di'kut?"

He remembered the day Boil and Waxer had come into his office to formally request their medical contact clauses be activated in each other's names. He'd been in the bunk room when Print had tattooed their serial numbers and ship assignments on each other's backs. Cody's back only had his own tags, and it never would have had Obi-Wan's. He flexed his jaw and felt it pop.

"He was always trying to save every blasted being we karking saw," Boil continued. "I don't know why they put him in the infantry. He should have been a medic. One of the fancy ones on the orbital hospitals."

"Surgical aides," Cody said. "They call them surgical aides."

"Yeah, those," Boil said. He leaned against the wall nearest to the door to the crew's quarters and crossed his arms. 

They stood next to each other quietly. Cody's shoulders felt lopsided and raw, like they were too tired to hold position. He squared them, pulling hard on his muscles even as they fought him. Boil looked down at his feet. They probably needed to get back to Rex and the men. He still—he still needed to tell them about the shuttle.

"I," Cody said. He stopped.

Boil looked up. "Sir?"

"Did you know…” Cody asked. He cleared his throat; it sounded too strained, not nearly smooth enough for a commander. “…The first full conversation we had was about bills?"

He didn’t talk about _them_ much. Ever, really. No one was supposed to know, and even when they did know, they all pretended otherwise, like General Skywalker and the Senator. Cody felt like he should be whispering.

"No, sir, I didn't," Boil said.

"We were stuck on that ridge during the siege at Culatora," Cody said, and licked his lips. "The mud got everywhere. The fungus wasn't just toxic. It _stained_ everything, and the seps had taken out every comm tower but the emergency portable ones. You know, the ones that keep a charge for three hours and then take ten to come back online."

Boil snorted. "Yeah, I remember those. I think Trip-Sevens converted his to heat caff."

Cody chuckled once, then stopped; the sound was a bit too loud. "So there's the General and me working off the one datapad, trying to download reports from every sector that we could still contact, and then the comm tower's charge light starts blinking its countdown just as karking Parjai signs off. We had five, maybe six minutes for any personal business, and the General hands me the pad and asks me if I need to check my messages, if I've heard anything from Captain Rex."

Boil smiled. "That sounds like the General."

Cody tilted his helmet to the right. "Yeah," he said. "So I try to wave him off, rank first and everything, and he insists, and he was...we were just sitting in mud, covered head to toe in osik, but..." He blinked. Sweat was dripping into his eyes beneath his helmet. Obi-Wan's hands had been the only clean parts on him; he could stilll see the way they'd moved in that tent, with those elegant, calloused fingers. "Anyway, I checked my messages, and made some comment on my debt payment going through, and the General says, ‘Oh yes, thank you, Cody. I should just check mine as well. I fear I shall need to add to it once we're off this blasted planet.’

"You never think about Jedi having to pay for themselves, do you, sir?" Boil asked. He tilted his head to the side, pressed his lips together, and watched Cody.

"No," Cody said. "And I said that too, or something like that, and we just started...talking. Turns out his and ours go to the same place, even. Same things, mostly."

Boil nodded. "Of course, sir. Makes sense, I suppose."

"Right," Cody said, and swallowed. "Well, it got us talking. He was—he is an interesting kind of Jedi."

Boil came off the wall and let his arms hang at his sides. "Yes, he is, sir," Boil said. "Best Jedi in the GAR."

"Don't let Captain Rex hear you say that," Cody said, putting some strength in his voice.

Boil grinned. "Five-Oh-One's nothing but fireworks and shouting, sir. 212th gets stang done. So, I think we—"

The deck shook hard, and Boil stopped talking. He looked at the flooring, and then back up at Cody. His eyes were wide. "I have a feeling you and the Captain came down to tell us something important, Commander," he said.

Cody clenched his teeth together and swallowed. He nodded. "Yes," he said, and took a step back. Obi-Wan's hands flashed in his mind's eye again, the filament-thin scars on his knuckles, and the way he crossed his wrists as he lifted his arms over his head. Cody shook his head once and slashed his hand through the air between him and Boil. "Right, let's back in there. We've got a situation on our hands."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a:
> 
> Dar'iduur (DAHR-ee-doo-er): _lit._ no longer [a] spouse. _fig._ Widower.
> 
> Osik _(impolite)_ (OH-sick): _lit._ Dung. _fig._ Shit. 
> 
> Osik’la _(impolite)_ (OH-sick-lah): Shitty. 
> 
> “Gar liniba haalur” (Gahr LEE-nee-ba he-LOOR): You need to breathe. 
> 
> “Tion gar jurkadin ti ni?” (Shion gahr JOOR-kad-EER tee nee): Are you messing around with me? _fig._
> 
> Vod (Vohd): _lit._ ‘Sibling’ or ‘Comrade.’ _fig._ Can be understood as ‘sister,’ ‘brother,’ or ‘close friend/fellow clan member’ dependent upon contextual indication and linguistic translation.
> 
> Vod’e (Vohd-eh): _pl._ Siblings
> 
>  
> 
> Aurebesh:
> 
> Cresh (Kah-reh-shh): C
> 
> Senth (Seh-nth): S


	7. Chapter 7

“We’ve finished the navicomputer dump, sir. It’s all in the _Arrow_ ’s processors now. I thought you should know."

"Thank you, Juri," Cody said, and angled his wrist a little closer. He tapped his thumb on his gauntlet below the commlink. "You and Zeer grab something to eat. The Commander wants to be alone with the shuttle now."

"Yes, sir," Juri said. The comm crackled like he'd breathed directly across the mic. "I'm sorry, sir."

The pressure in his chest bore down for a second, and Cody breathed through it until the weight felt more natural. That made the third time one of the men had apologized to him since they’d towed General Grevious’s shuttle into the hold. The cockpit had been empty. Of course it had been. Cody hadn’t needed confirmation of that; he hadn’t even come down to the hold when Rex had cracked the emergency seals on the cockpit. He’d told them the General wouldn’t be there. Cody stared at the auxiliary power coupling high on the opposite wall, and then down at the computer screen on the desk in front of him. 

"Nothing to apologize for, Corporal," he said.

"Sir."

Cody tapped the comm button and closed the channel. He took a second to stretch his arms out over the top of the desk he'd commandeered in the engineer's section beneath the bridge, and then put both hands onto the keypad. He began to type.

The door slid open with a hiss of its hydraulics. Cody glanced up, then finished his sentence.

"Still writing yourself up?" Rex asked as he walked inside, his helmet under one arm.

"I'm not writing myself up," Cody said, typing faster. "Reports help me concentrate."

Work let him put aside all the stang the galaxy threw at him, and focus on the essentials. Even when every move seemed arbitrary and he spent more time requisitioning bacta and bandages than he did pounding clankers, getting it all down into a report put the war in perspective. First _this_ happened, and then _that_.

Rex grunted. "What’re you karking writing about?"

Cody hit the space bar with a loud clack. "Right now? How I got off the _Vigilance_."

He heard Rex's footsteps and looked up to see him standing by the end of the engineer's desk. Dark circles sagged beneath his eyes. He set his helmet down behind the computer monitor.

"What do you think?" Rex asked. "Will it be exhibit aurek or besh at our court martial?"

Cody rested both of his hands flat against the keyboard. “Think we’re gonna get one?”

“If we did, who’d preside?” Rex asked. “We murdered the Council.”

Cody sat back in his chair. Rex’s mouth twisted sideways and he shrugged. Cody pulled the datapad he’d set down on the end of the table into his lap; its casing clicked against his armor. Rex turned his face up to the ceiling and exhaled shakily.

“Sit down, vod,” Cody said.

Rex crossed his arms and rocked sideways on his feet. He cleared his throat in a long sigh and licked his lips. He looked back down from the ceiling, and his shoulders slumped as he sat down on the edge of the desk.

Cody didn’t know what was going to happen. Who was in charge? The GAR’s structure had been built through the Jedi Order’s historical records of armies the Republic had fielded in the past; every part of its hierarchy that hadn’t been commandeered from Judicial and the planetary security forces was ultimately Jedi commanded and clone run. Order 66 had been given; there were a limited amount of people who could profit from that.

“Do you still think it was only the Senate?” he asked.

Rex jerked, startled out of gazing at his boots. “What?”

“One of the Neutral Planets, maybe?” Cody asked. He tapped the section on his helmet above his bandaged scalp; it had begun to itch. “They’ve always had more Seppie sympathy than the Core.”

Rex shook his head. “The chips—we’ve always known about them, and the _programming_ couldn’t have come from the Jedi. They didn’t even know about us, and who would be that suicidal?”

Cody sniffed and tugged on the lip of his helmet. “General Kenobi once said Master Sifo-Dyas was practically a Revanite, and we were _his_ plan, not the Order’s. They didn’t even know what they were getting when he showed up on Kamino.”

“What’s a kriffing Revanite?” Rex asked.

Cody rolled his shoulders. “A kind of cultist,” he said. “Like the Night Sisters. General Kenobi’s been researching Force users outside the Order. He said he was making up for the blind spot in his education.”

They read like holovids, rather than the military history Cody’d been force-fed on Kamino. A woman avenging her husband’s murder and founding an Order, Jedi turned Sith turned Jedi turned ghost story…beings broken out of cryosleep to defeat empires. He was pretty sure some of it was just an inside joke that went too karking far.

Rex rubbed his hand over his cheek again. “You could…call him by his name,” he said. “If you wanted. There’s no one left to pull you for insubordination, is there?”

“I, um,” Cody said. He felt his eyes widen. 

Rex glanced at him and raised one shoulder. “If working with General Skywalker taught me anything, it’s that sometimes you have to push forward with what you know is right, even if everyone else says you’re wrong. General Kenobi was happier when he knew he was coming back to you.” 

Cody cleared his throat and looked away. Obi-Wan’s missions with Rex and General Skywalker had never sat right with the 212th; they were his personal battalion, not the 501st, and Cody was the one who was supposed to watch his general’s karking shebs, not Rex. He rubbed his fingers into his right palm.

“It’s not comfortable,” Cody said finally. 

Obi-Wan was a name for closed doors and grumbling about whose turn it was to make dinner. It was a name to whisper against flushed skin as Cody coaxed him to that place in his head where all that mattered was how deeply Obi-Wan could take Cody inside and how hard Cody could hold Obi-Wan down. When they were working, it was a different story.

Rex nodded. “All right.” He flexed his arms around his chest and licked his lips. “Anyway,” he said. “What I said earlier, I was out of line.”

Cody leaned back in his chair and rested his clasped hands in his lap. The server fans above his head whirred to life. Cody listened to Rex’s sigh fall out of his mouth like he’d been keeping it inside for too long. 

“I shouldn’t have attacked you,” Cody said. 

Cody put his right hand out and touched the edge of the desk by Rex’s hip. General Skywalker was still out there, and even if it wasn’t the same, he was still Rex’s Jedi. 

Rex tapped his knee against Cody’s arm. Cody set his datapad on the opposite side of the computer and tilted his helmet to the right. Rex’s eyebrows raised and then lowered and he leaned forward. Cody sat up a little straighter in his chair.

Rex tried to smile. “Just have to keep looking, right, vod?” 

“Right,” Cody repeated. 

Rex sucked his teeth and looked down at his feet. Cody leaned back in his chair. The inside of his helmet felt stale and hot against his face. He looked at Rex and wondered if they both looked that old now, or if it was just fatigue.

“I don’t think it was the Senate,” Rex said, and glanced up. “and you don’t either.”

Cody nodded slowly. It was treason even to think it, much less say it, but hearing it out loud made it more real, somehow. They’d been chipped, forced to obey an order that could only have been given by one being, and that being had looked straight into Cody’s eyes as he’d held his personal comm.

“Changed your tune,” he said.

“The Senate couldn’t find its shebs in a luma factory,” Rex said, “and I know you were on patrol when the osik hit the oscillator but—”

“The General kept me informed,” Cody said.

Rex nodded. “General Skywalker wouldn’t believe a word Fives told him about what was happening. Echuta, Cody, Fives was right about the chips, and if he was right about them, then I think we have to face the possibility that he was…” Rex’s voice lowered to a whisper. “Cody, the Supreme Chancellor did this.”

Cody bent his head and felt lip of his helmet click against his cuirass. “And if he controlled the force that killed the Jedi, who would he send us up against next?”

And soldiers went where they were sent, fought where they were ordered. If Cody hadn’t stopped and honestly _thought_ about what had happened on Utapau, where would he be? Where would he be after—after all the Jedi were gone? His chest felt so heavy that his lungs ached as he breathed. A spike of pain stabbed down from the top of his head to the base of his skull. He raised his head and looked at the cursor blinking on his computer screen.

Rex stood up and stepped away, drawing both hands over his scalp. “We’re getting more news reports the closer we get to the Core. Picked up a JGSN bulletin about a—a coup at the Senate building. The Supreme Chancellor’s in the hospital under a private guard.” He swallowed. “Non-Kaminoan.”

Cody put his elbows on the desk. “Who then?”

Rex’s mouth thinned. “It’s that fast-cooked plasti-foil legion they replaced Fox’s company with.”

That was another sore spot; the Republic had started sending more and more older vod’e out to the front, sometimes breaking up entire planetary forces to split them between fighting battalions, and replacing them with clones out of Spaarti Creations. What remained of the Coruscant Guard was out somewhere near Coyerti, fretting over who was guarding the Senate. The 212th had gotten off lightly, but the 501st’s casualty rates meant they’d taken more than their fair share of Spaarti batches. They didn’t mix well.

Cody closed his eyes briefly. “Stang.”

Rex tucked his arms closer to his chest. “I think General Skywalker’s probably dead,” he said quietly. “Reports from the Temple have all but dried up.”

Cody swallowed and heard his throat click. Rex hunched his shoulders, chin tucked low, and sniffed. Cody leaned forward and put his hand on Rex’s leg. He looked up to see wrinkles twist in Rex’s forehead. Rex grabbed Cody’s fingers tightly.

“His name showed up?” Cody asked.

Rex breathed through his mouth. “No,” he said finally. “But the longer we search without finding anything, the more I have a bad feeling about this.”

Cody forced a chuckle past his lips. “Now who’s the Jedi?”

Rex released his hold, and Cody grabbed his hand back. He tightened his grip and reached out with his other to touch Rex’s side, pressing down hard on the armor so Rex could feel it. It was a little awkward with the desk, but Cody moved closer anyway. He heard Rex take a deep breath and slipped his arm around Rex’s back.

“I left him alone,” Rex said, almost too softly to be heard. 

Reminding him he’d been karking ordered to go probably wouldn’t help. Cody shook his head.  
“No, Rex, we’re coming to get him. We’re coming for—for both of them.”

Above him, Rex hiccupped, and Cody felt it when Rex tried to curl up over him, like they were shinies hiding in their tent during command training again. “What will we tell Senator Amidala?” Rex whispered.

Cody swallowed. It wasn’t karking likely they’d ever get close enough to tell the Senator any—

The emergency klaxon blared, and they broke apart. 

“Emergency jump!” Eighty-One yelled over shipwide comms. “Brace for bounce! Brace! _Brace!_ ”

The klaxon rang out again. Rex leaped off the desk. He jabbed his thumb down on the commlink on his wrist as he brought it up to his mouth. “Rex to Del. What the kriffing hell is going on up there?”

“Del can’t answer, sir,” Eighty-One said, still coming in through the ship’s transducer. “He’s—”

The _Arrow’s Compass_ lurched right and groaned. The sound echoed through the engineer’s room as the engine buffers struggled to keep up with the power dump. 

“Blast it, Rex, get down!” Cody yelled. He felt his body lighten and lift, and grabbed the desk in front of him with both hands. He shoved his weight against the chair bolted to the deck, and planted both feet on the floor.

“ _Echuta_.” Rex dropped to the ground on Cody’s right and braced himself between the wall and the desk. “Is it an attack?” 

“Jump in three…two… _one!_ ” Eighty-One called out.

Cody felt his body stretch forward and drag backwards at the same time; he clenched his hands on the desk and squeezed his eyes shut. Rex’s helmet clattered to the floor, followed by the datapad. The ship’s groans lifted into a screech. Cody heard the fans rev up. They jumped.

Cody grunted; he shook as the pressure surrounded him. He heard Rex’s boots scrape against the deck plates, and then the pull on Cody’s body pushed him into the chair. Cody slumped. He breathed in and out, in and out, and rubbed his neck underneath his helmet as the ship wobbled into a stable position. 

“What the hell was that?”

Rex staggered to his feet, and caught himself against the desk before he overbalanced. He shook his head and winced.

“We have to get to the bridge,” he said. He stumbled two steps as he bent to pick up his bucket, and then regained his footing.

“Right,” Cody said. He stood. His stomach roiled

“Medics to the bridge! All medics to the bridge!” Eighty-One was speaking so quickly the transducer whined with feedback.

They raced out of the engineer’s room and up the corridor. Rex put his helmet on as they ran. The elevators automatically shut down for ten minutes immediately post-jump, so Cody followed Rex down the auxiliary passageway and up the inset stairs to the bridge. Cody’s vision blurred and his breath heaved in his chest. Emergency jumps were karking murder on the nervous system. 

“You think there was a backup chip?” Rex asked, and drew both of his blasters as they stepped out into the bridge’s antechamber. 

“But why _now?_ ” Cody clenched his jaw. He drew his own sidearm, set to stun, and moved to the right of the closed door. He looked Rex square in the eye. “On your mark,” he said.

Rex went left, and aimed for the door. “Mark,” he said.

“Go!” Cody hit the door panel with his elbow, and whipped around, aiming his blaster across the threshold. Rex mirrored him on the left.

“Clear,” Cody yelled, and pushed in to the bridge a hairsbreadth ahead of Rex. Behind them, he could hear pounding booted footsteps as the door swished shut. Cody swept to the side and aimed down the center of the bridge. He froze. The temperature on his HUD registered at least twenty degrees above shipboard norms.

“What the numa-humping frozen bantha stang is going on?” he asked.

“Blast it, Ahsoka,” Rex muttered. He lowered his blasters and stared.

Commander Tano stood behind Del at the pilot’s station, with one hand clutching her shoto lightsaber and the other curled over Del’s bare head. Her face was turned up to the ceiling; her mouth was parted. Her toes only just touched the ground.

The door hissed open and Rivet and Kix raced through, barely ahead of the rest of the crew, armed and aiming.

Rivet holstered his Deece and whipped out his diagnostic reader. “Force _take_ it!”

Commander Tano's body suddenly swung backwards; her hand pulled away from Del’s head. Del shuddered as he whipped around in his chair. Wide-eyed and gasping, he grabbed the commander’s hand as she swooped up into the air. Their eyes met as the heat in the room flared even higher. Slowly, their hands parted as she rose higher; she raised her face to the ceiling again. Del collapsed backwards against his console, chest heaving enough to move his cuirass, still staring.

Kix rushed forward, past Commander Tano, and took Del’s face in both hands. “What happened?” he demanded. He dropped one hand to the reader on his belt. “Del?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Rex said. He looked between Del and the Commander.

“Eighty-One, what’s going on?” Cody asked. He shook his head and stepped forward. “Why did we jump?”

Rivet pointed his reader at the small of the Commander’s back. “Karking Jedi,” he muttered. “She’s gone down hard—or up, I don’t karking know—but I’ve never seen this in any of the holotutorials, sirs. Commander, can you hear me?”

“Where are we going?” Boil asked as he pushed through the crowd at the back of the bridge. 

“Eighty-One, get on the comms and see what chatter we can pick up,” Cody said. “Juri, get to the guns.”

He moved further inward, to the center of the bridge. Light flickered around Commander Tano’s body, blue and purple and white flashes curving in a foot-wide sphere around her.

“Commander?” Rex asked. 

Cody looked down at his hands and holstered his weapon. He slashed his left arm through the air. “Blasters away and spread out,” he said, and ignored the way his heartbeat was thudding against his ribs. “I want to know what happened. Eighty-One?”

“She just ran in, sir,” Eighty-One said, standing up at his post. “She ordered us to prep for a jump, but she couldn’t give us coordinates, and then…” He gestured to Del, and shrugged, shaking his head. “I don’t know what happened. He just slaved the engine controls, and started typing in coordinates; I barely had time to sound the alarm.”

“Commander Tano?” Rex walked closer, blasters in both hands and his arms at his sides.  
“Ahsoka?”

“We’re aimed coreward, Commander,” Eighty-One said, typing quickly. “Judging by the angle of deflection, I’m guessing we’re headed straight for a major lane, but we’re coming in too fast. We’re accelerating in hyperspace!”

“Great. If we don’t karking wind up scraped across the nearest star cluster, we’ll come out on top of whatever sitting benibesset’s on the other side of corridor,” Vapor said.

A grinding shudder shook the deckplates. The _Arrow_ hitched backwards, and Cody lost his footing. He heard the shouts of the men and the crash of armor all around him as he fell to the deck. His vision wavered and doubled, and he groaned.

The ship bucked forwards; the engines whined shrilly. Cody flipped onto his stomach and spread his arms and legs out for stability. He raised his head and gripped the deck, trying to get an inch of leverage as he slid forward. Out the front viewport, the glittering smeared stars of a hyperspace tunnel began to flicker from blue to orange and red. Cody grit his teeth and pushed himself up onto his knees. He shook his head and shuddered under the gravitational pressure trying to press him back to the shivering deck.

He met Kix’s eyes where he was braced against the support strut underneath Del’s chair. Kix nodded and dragged himself hand over hand up back of the seat, until he was crouched by the piloting controls. Del still lay on top of them, head pointed at the front viewport. Slowly, Kix reached out for the controls underneath Del’s outflung arm; his hand rocked back and forth in the air. He yelled and lunged, smacking his palm down on the console. The _Arrow_ dipped, and Cody slid forward. He heard the engines cycle and the whining reach a fever pitch, and then the hyperspace corridor spun wide; the _Arrow_ dumped into real space.

Cody collapsed back to the deck. Groans erupted around him. Karking _stang._ He levered himself up with his left arm and shook his head.

“Echuta,” Rex groaned. “Eighty-One, give me a reading.”

“Sir,” Eighty-One said. “I’m picking up local chatter from at least four terrestrial satellite systems.”

Cody leaned over his lap and breathed deeply. He burped and shook his head. Blast his stomach. He rolled to his feet and looked out at the suddenly empty viewport. All around him, brothers struggled to their feet.

“Guns online, sir,” Juri said.

“Then where’s the traffic?” Trip-Sevens asked. He pushed out from the pack towards Juri, and dragged Snag after him. “We should be surrounded by ships.” 

“Corporal Delete,” Kix said loudly. He tilted Del’s head upward, and aimed his reader at Del’s pulse. “I need you to focus.”

“Del?” Vapor walked past Cody to the front of the bridge. He leaned down and waved his hand in front of Del’s face, blocking Cody’s view of Del.

“Sir, we’re in a government lane,” Juri said. “I recognize those constellations. It’s the Paeksiton fast track to Triple Zero.”

“ _What?_ ” Rex jerked his head away from staring at Tano, who was still suspended in mid-air. “We can’t be here. You need ship-based clearance to be on the FT or else you’ll ping the lane sensors.”

Cody stiffened. The _Arrow_ was running dark; they didn’t have clearance for anything but unmarked space. They couldn’t be following General Grevious, since his impression had led them to the shuttle and no further, which meant Commander Tano must have been following the shuttle’s missing pilot. Karking hell.

“What’s in range?” Cody asked. “Have we been nabbed yet?”

“On it, sir,” Eighty-One said from the other side of the room. “Nothing on comms yet. The chatter’s all about the—the coup. All terrestrial forces have been ordered to maintain their positions.” He snorted. “The Ivory Fang’s the only battalion out in force.”

The men not at a station began to cluster again, like shinies out of their pods. “Coup?” one of them repeated.

“Well they have to say _something_ , don’t they, Zeer?” Rex snapped. “You think we’re all just committing murder for a whim?”

“Rex,” Cody said.

Rex took his helmet off with both hands, and tossed it to the floor. 

Juri typed faster, and glanced up. “Map onscreen, sirs,” he said. 

“Go,” Tano said, and the sound rolled through the bridge like a stone.

They all stopped moving. Cody felt himself caught in place while her voice vibrated into his bones. He suddenly wanted to move, his thigh muscles shook with the urge to run, but his feet refused to leave the deck. Go, but go where? He’d go, he’d leave right this second. Behind him, he heard armor clattering. Snag whined.

“Go,” she said again, louder, and Cody broke free long enough to move two steps closer to her. Rex was already there, pressed up against the flashing lights surrounding her in a dense ball. “We’re _late_ , we’re—” 

Cody could see her throat working as her body shook in the air. He’d never seen someone so deep within the Force before, not like this. Rex slapped the energy field surrounding her. “Commander!” he yelled.

“Angle-off twenty-one,” she said. She snarled and Cody could see the points of her front teeth. “Mark is at—at— _go!_ ”

“Move, move, get off me!” Del shouted.

Vapor and Kix quick-stepped backwards. Del turned around and bent over the piloting controls. 

“Hang on!” Cody called out just as the _Arrow_ accelerated, kicking off with full thrusters. He put his hand out as he stumbled, and he managed to right himself in time to see the aiming funnel appear on the front viewport, twisting off down the FT.

“Mark is at angels forty-five from AI,” Tano said, rising higher in the air. The top of the sphere surrounding her brushed the ceiling. “Haar’chak, _ibi’tuur_ , gar or'dinii!”

The Commander could speak Mando’a? Cody caught Rex’s shocked face. The ship sped up; Cody could see the rate of thruster fire increase on the viewport’s readout. The aiming funnel shifted three degrees and then corrected. 

“Gar serim,” Del called out. “Almost there.”

“Almost where?” Rex asked. He stepped back from Tano and came closer to Cody.  
“Where are we going?”

Cody shook his head. He swallowed and pressed a hand to his cuirass just above his tightening stomach. 

“Chatter’s picking up, sirs,” Eighty-One said. “I think we’re making a lot of noise out there.”

“That’s because we’re pushing thrusters six beyond safety perimeters,” Snag snapped. He broke for the co-pilot’s station and began typing. “Blast it, Del, slow down!”

“I can see it,” Tano said, and Cody’s head swam. His HUD registered a temperature spike. He thought he saw a shape, an outline in front of his eyes, but it dissolved into sparks and nothingness. The bridge came back into view just as Rivet went to his knees, gasping for air. He dropped his head and put both hands on the floor. Cody dragged him up off the deck. Rivet sagged against his side.

“It’s a ship,” he said, shaking his head. “I can see the engines flaring hot.”

Cody glanced at Rivet. “What ship?” he asked. “Could you see its markings?”

They were chasing someone, and if they were chasing this close then it could be him. It could be Obi-Wan. The _Arrow_ was a smuggler’s dream, but whatever Commander Tano had sensed in the hold had to be a ship with engines just as fast. Cody felt the strain on the ship, still shuddering from the emergency jump and dump. He widened his stance for balance as Del angled four degrees to compensate for inertia. 

“If it’s on the FT, we’re chasing something with all the right idents,” Rex said. “Juri, I want those guns ready to fire. I don’t know where we’re going, but I’m not sure we’ll like it.”

“It could be a ship of the line,” Cody said. 

A government lane could mean anything from a diplomatic convoy to a single Destroyer. The GAR jumped military lanes to government lanes with relative impunity, and now the _Arrrow_ was barreling right down the thoroughfare like a pirate clan after a limping farm barge. 

“Sir, I need to get to Commander Tano,” Rivet said. He pushed himself off Cody’s shoulder, and Cody let him go. 

Rivet ran to the edge of Tano’s karking light show, and aimed his diagnostic reader upwards. “Kix?” he called out. “Give me a reading.”

“Del’s temp is 103 degrees, SVT holding at 101 beats per minute,” Kix said. “Skin’s hot, but he’s sweating.”

Cody looked over. Kix had his kit out and was working around Del’s body as he piloted. Vapor was standing between the co-pilot and piloting stations, chewing his thumbnail as he stared down at Del. 

“Commander’s readout concurs,” Rivet said. “Do you think it’s…”

“Karking right I do,” Kix said. He turned around to face the back of the bridge; his lips were pressed into a thin line. 

“ _Fierfek_ ,” Rivet said. “We’re gonna need the full rehydration kit. Trip-Sevens!”

“Here,” Trip-Sevens said. He still had his Deece out, held at rest with both hands.

“Get up to Medbay,” Rivet said without taking his eyes away from Tano, who was still halfway to the blasted ceiling with her mouth stretched wide open in a snarl. The ship’s engines groaned; the flooring rattled. “I need two full emergency packs. Take Attie and grab as much benxolprex as you can find in the top right-hand drawer of the drug locker.”

“It’s locked,” Trip-Sevens said.

“Like it’s stopped you before,” Rivet snapped. “ _Go._

“I need an explanation, Rivet,” Cody said.

“Preferably before we reach the end of whatever course the Commander’s set for us,” Rex said.

Trip-Sevens and Attie ran for the door and then off the bridge. The rest of the men looked at each other, hands on their holstered weapons. Rivet glanced over his shoulder, cheek twitching.

“Commander Tano’s holocron, sir,” he said. “It’s a research aid for—blast it—I don’t even know. There’s information for the Star Corps and the Explorer Corps, and an entire section on how to patch them after they try to commit suicide by star system, and she was not supposed to make us put theory to practice this soon!”

Rivet stabbed at his datapad with stiff fingers and turned around. A couple of Rex’s men began to crowd around Commander Tano’s…bubble. Cody glanced over and caught Rex’s eye. 

“Sirs, we’re coming up on a ship,” Eighty-One announced. “One mark at 3-40.”

“It’s alone?” Rex asked. He walked past Cody to the front of the bridge. “There’s no escort?”

“I doubt they could keep up,” Snag said. “Del, unlock the controls, we’re going to spin out at this rate.”

“Not yet,” Del said, and tapped in a course correction. “She says to hold steady, and that’s what I’ll do.”

The _Arrow_ shuddered again, and Cody wavered on his feet. Rivet swore and staggered back as Commander Tano shot past him towards the front viewport. The flashes of lightening swooped around her body so quickly Cody wasn’t certain whether he was seeing the bolts themselves or their afterimage. It was the Force, this had to be what the Force looked like. The heat rose higher and higher until sweat bloomed underneath Cody’s armor; an emergency port burst on the ceiling. Fire control foam sprayed across the bridge and down across the men.

“Oh _osik_ ,” Zeer said, and held his arm over his head. 

“She’s turning!” Juri yelled.

If it was Obi-Wan on that ship—it could be true, at this point it had to be. Commander Tano had felt something from the shuttle in the hold. She must have found him. And if the ship was running down a government lane, then Obi-Wan could be held captive.

“Get those guns up,” Cody ordered. “Lock target!”

The Force lightening sphere surrounding Commander Tano cut out; she fell to the floor. Rivet dropped to his knees, and Rex did the same, seconds later. Together, they turned her over on the floor. 

He heard a scuffle. Cody glanced over, stepped in front of the knot of troopers, and held up his arms. “Stay back!”

Rex’s men stopped, but held position, angling their heads to look past him. “Sir, is she—I mean, she isn’t—” Eighty-One wrung his hands.

“She’s breathing,” Rivet said loudly. “Her temperature’s dropping fast, someone get me a thermal.”

“I’ve got her,” Rex said.

Cody risked a peek over his shoulder. Rex had Commander Tano in his lap, holding her back against his front with both arms around her waist. Eighty-One fidgeted, and Cody turned back around.

“Get back to your post, Eighty-One,” he said. “We need to know what we’re facing.”

Eighty-One pressed his lips together; his nostrils flared as he breathed, and shifted on his feet. Vapor stepped aside to Cody’s right. Eighty-One swallowed, and clenched his hands more tightly. He backed up a step and then another.

“Yes sir,” he said, and broke eye contact as he returned to the comms station.

“I’ve got—sir, their shields are down. Repeat, mark has not raised its shields,” Snag said from the co-pilot’s chair.

The door to the bridge opened, and Trip-Sevens burst over the threshold, clutching medpaks in both arms. Attie held a stack of boxes against his chest. Cody stepped away.

“Thermals,” he said. “Break them all out.”

“Yes sir,” Trip-Sevens said. He dropped the medpaks to the floor and pulled his vibroscalpel out from behind his ear. He flicked the blade on, and slashed the top of the first medpak.

“And bugjuice!” Rivet shouted. “I need two full packages, one for Commander Tano—”

“And one for Del,” Kix interrupted. “His temperature is dropping as well. It’s just like that damn holocron.”

“Karking Jedi,” Rivet said.

“I know, I know,” Commander Tano said weakly. “They’re all insane.”

A sigh rippled through the bridge. Cody’s shoulders sagged. Trip-Sevens tossed him a thermal packet. He broke the seal as he turned on his heels, and opened the shining silver blanket with a snap of his wrists. He went to one knee between Rivet and Rex, and wrapped the thermal around Tano without waiting for Rex to open his arms.

“Syrette, now,” Rivet said, and caught the sani-packet from across the bridge one-handed. He stripped off the protective sealing, and stuck the syrette to the base of Commander Tano’s neck. He depressed the bag, and she shuddered.

“You’ll feel worse without it,” Rivet said. “We’re also alternating water and bugjuice.” He held up his hand for another throw, and caught an emergency liquid packet. “And you will drink all of it, or Force take me, I will tie you down and pour it into your mouth myself. Blast it, we need to get you to MedBay.”

“Sirs, we need to get out of here,” Snag said. “Sensors have locked. That’s the Alderaanian senator’s ship.”

Cody sucked in air. He whipped his head around to stare out the front viewport, and then back to Tano. Above the crest of her montrals, he could see Rex’s wide eyes.

“Not yet,” Tano said. She breathed through her mouth. The skin around her lips was so pale it nearly matched the white bands on her montrals. “We’ve got to say hello first. And after the noise I just made, it’d better be now.”

“What noise?” Cody asked. 

“Hello?” Rex said. “Hello to who?”

Rivet shoved an emergency liquid pack in Tano’s face. Droplets of bugjuice bounced out of the ripped opening and down his gauntlet. “Drink first.”

Tano pulled her arm out of the thermal, and took the pack. Her grip was steady.

“Sir, I think you need to slow down,” Cody said.

“After this, Commander,” Tano said. She took a drink and swallowed, grimacing. “I intend to. Well, a little bit, anyway.”

“Commander, I am not old enough for stang like this,” Rex said.

Tano snorted. “Duly noted, Captain.” She reached up and around with her free hand, and patted the back of Rex’s head. “I’m all right, really. I’m all right.”

Cody stood. He turned to the front of the bridge; Senator Organa’s personal ship hung onscreen, shields down. Kix looked up from watching Del, who was drinking his own emergency packet, a thermal around his shoulders. 

“Any movement?” Cody asked.

“Nothing, sir,” Snag said. “They’re just…I don’t know. They’re waiting.”

“Take the conn from Del,” Cody said. “He’s going to MedBay with the Commander.”

“Sir, I feel fine,” Del said, and turned around in his chair. Kix broke the seal on another liquid pack, and replaced the spent one in Del’s hand.

“You can tell us all about it once Kix has done a complete workup,” Cody said.

“Not yet,” Tano said. “Look, Rex help me up.”

Cody caught movement out of the side of his visor. Rivet backed into his view and Cody stepped away. Commander Tano staggered to her feet with Rex close behind; the thermal fell to the deck. She overbalanced, and Rex caught her by the elbows.

“Ahsoka, you need to rest,” Rivet said. “You need to keep drinking.”

“In a minute, Rivet,” Tano said. She took a deep breath, walked forward, and listed right like a bulk cruiser in a nebula. The bug juice packet splashed across the floor.

Rex caught her and scooped her off the deck into his arms. “Sorry about this,” he said.

Tano groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Rex, I…you know what? Never mind. We’ll talk about this later.” 

She threw her arm over Rex’s shoulders and ignored the thermal Rivet was tucking in around her legs. She cleared her throat. “Eighty-One, hail the Senator.”

“Yes, Commander,” Eighty-One said.

Cody cleared his throat. He licked his lips. “I…excuse me, Commander,” he said. “Are we—”  
He cleared his throat again. His stomach clenched into a sour knot. “Is it the General?” he asked, and braced himself.

Tano bit her lower lip, and glanced up and away, before meeting his eyes again. “I’m sorry, Commander,” she said quietly. “When I went into the hold, I sat in the cockpit and concentrated on the—the threads in the Force, the ones that bind us all together. I couldn’t feel Master Obi-Wan at all.”

Cody flinched. “Not at all?”

“But he was in there,” Boil protested. “He blasted off Utapau in that thing.”

Tano frowned, drawing her eyebrows down. “I know,” she said. “But when I went deeper into the Force, I did find a signature. Strong, but fading. I think I was supposed to find it.”

“Who, then?” Rex asked.

“The Alderaanian ship is returning our hail,” Eighty-One said. 

“Put it through,” Tano said. “We need to get this going, I’m…getting a little more tired than I thought.”

“But, Commander,” Boil said. “Who could you have sensed if it wasn’t Ba’vodu?”

“It was Master Yoda,” Tano said.

The comm table between the co-pilot and piloting stations hummed to life, glowing blue as the holographic field came online. Bail Organa’s avatar appeared in the center. Rex swung Commander Tano down onto her feet, bracing her in place with his hands on her waist.

“Greetings,” Senator Organa said. He stood with his arms crossed over his chest and his great cloak with the royal short cape tossed over one shoulder.

Rex and Tano walked to the front of the bridge, closer to the comms array at the center. Cody felt his body come to attention; his shoulders drew back and his arms went stiff at his sides. He stared over the image of the Senator’s head. Obi-Wan had liked the Senator; they’d fought together. 

“Greetings, Senator,” Tano said, standing straight, as if she wasn’t being propped up by Rex. 

Rex still had his Jedi. A muffled ringing began in Cody’s ears; he rubbed the back of his neck underneath his helmet. He stretched his jaw and resisted the urge to yawn. He was suddenly so tired. He felt heavy, like he was caught in a gravity well. He wanted to sit down, and locked his aching knees. He should keep standing; the men would see.

“It’s good to see you, Pada—ah, _Mistress_ Tano,” Senator Organa said. “Though the circumstances leave a little room for improvement.”

Mistress? The Senator was feeling cautious today. Cody glanced up at the comm display, and then away.

Tano’s chuckle was little more than air. “You can say that again, Senator,” she said. 

Cody felt pressure on his left arm guard. Boil moved into his line of sight. “Sir?” Boil asked.

Cody shook his head. He blinked; his eyes stung. Obi-Wan wasn’t there again. He hadn’t been in the shuttle, and he wasn’t on the ship. 

The heaviness on his arm increased. “Steady, sir,” Boil said quietly. 

“I’m surprised you knew how to find us, if I’m being honest,” the Senator said. “I was told by a mutual friend that you had left the Order and gone to the Outer Rim.”

“I did,” Tano said. “But a detachment from the 501st found me for an…important mission. We’ve been making our way coreward ever since.”

Cody frowned. His face felt hot. He wanted to sit down.

The Senator’s avatar leaned forward suddenly, arms coming down. “The 501st?” he repeated. “Mistress Tano, I should warn you—”

“With respect, Senator Organa,” Tano interrupted. “I’ve never been safer since I left the crèche. Master Yoda is with you, isn’t he? There’s something you and he need to know, and I’d prefer to show it to you in person.”

Organa paused, and looked off comms. “Master Yoda is indeed on board.” He stroked his goatee and nodded. “Does your news have anything to do with the arms in view through our comm unit?” The Senator raised one eyebrow.

Tano grinned. “It has everything to do with those arms, yes.”

Rex moved closer to the comm’s imaging range. Senator Organa’s eyebrows shot upward. “Captain _Rex_?”

The ringing in Cody’s ears grew louder; a full body ache bloomed in his bones. Yoda. They’d found Yoda, and not Obi-Wan. That made sense. Yoda was always ordering Obi-Wan away from him.

“It’s good to see you again, Senator,” Rex said. “You have no idea the trouble we took to get here.”

The Senator glanced off comms again, and shook his head. “Captain Rex, we were unaware that you had gone in search of Pad—Mistress Tano,” he said. “This is—unexpected.”

“It’s _Commander_ ,” Del muttered.

“I had my orders straight from General Skywalker himself, sir,” Rex said. “It’s been a long mission.”

“There’s news from the front,” Tano said. “It’s important.”

“And there’s news from the Core you need to hear,” Senator Organa said. He frowned. “We’d be happy to hear anything you’d like to tell us, of course. We’ll move off-lane and connect with you ship-to-ship. My conference room is at your disposal.”

Rex swung Tano back up off the floor and took a step back; the entire bridge tensed. Eighty-One stood up from his chair. Cody noticed a scrape across the blue paint on the back of his right gauntlet; he stretched his fingers out to get a better look at it. Had he put it there? It didn’t really matter, since he was a deserter now, but it seemed wrong, somehow, that he couldn’t even karking keep borrowed armor in good repair. That there was nothing he could fix.

Tano and the Senator kept talking at each other. Cody looked for a corner to sit down in. Boil shook Cody’s arm. Commander Tano was speaking “—can’t come over to you,” she said. “For one thing, you probably noticed I’m a bit held up at the moment.” She waved her hand up and down her body. “And my medic would probably glue my boots to the MedBay deck if I went anywhere else.” 

“You’re damned right about that,” Rivet said. “Sir.”

She grinned, and the Senator nodded. “And the other thing?” he asked.

“The evidence I have is too big to be transported easily,” she said. “I’d prefer to show you on board the _Arrow’s Compass_ before we discuss relocation.”

Senator Organa’s face lost its politician’s polite good humor. He frowned. “Is that right?”

Tano nodded. “Yes, Senator. It’s important.”

Senator Organa conferred off comms again. He raised both eyebrows this time. “And you’re sure of this?” he asked. “All right.”

He crossed his arms over his chest again. “Mistress Tano, we accept your offer. Have your ship meet us off-lane, and we will send our emissary to speak with you.”

Tano’s head tilted. “Have your pilot transmit the coordinates, Senator,” she said a bit slowly. “We look forward to the meeting.”

Senator Organa nodded. His avatar reached out, and disappeared. The comm screen slid back into the piloting station.

“All right,” Tano said, leaning back against Rex. Her eyelids fell until they were just barely open. “I think…I think we’ve done it. We’re where we need to be.”

Cody swallowed and clenched his fists. Why did it matter? What did any of it matter anymore? Rex looked over at him. Cody raised his head and squared his shoulders. His brother needed him.

“I’ll take the Commander to MedBay with Rivet, Kix, and Del,” Rex said.

“I’ll prepare the welcoming party,” Cody said.

Rex hitched Commander Tano higher up his chest, and turned for the door, trailed by the medics and a grumbling Del. Kix punched the door panel, and caught Cody’s line of sight as they exited. “I’ll have a report on Twenty-Three for you later, Commander,” he said. “Don’t worry, we’re looking after him.”

Cody raised his hand, and Kix stepped out of the bridge, just after Del. The door slid shut.

“Coordinates coming through, sir,” Snag said. “Should take us about thirty to forty minutes to reach the rendezvous point.”

“All right,” Cody said. “Just get us there.”

 

***

 

They left Twenty-Three in MedBay, sorting through the medpaks Trip-Sevens had destroyed to redistribute the contents they hadn’t used, but Cody gathered all the rest of the men outside the airlock in formal rows in full armor, the 501st on the left and the 212th on the right, with Commander Tano and Rex in the center. Cody stood by Boil, nearest the middle, but with his men. 

He’d taken a tab of Pexereca while he’d been up there, just for his head, but it made everything a little more distant.

The _Arrow_ ’s main airlock was just below the bridge, in a purpose-built subsection of the ship built. The luma panels were bright and bounced light off the white tiles directly into his eyes, only slightly dimmed by his helmet’s polarized lenses. He squinted. Commander Tano looked better after her nap in MedBay than when she’d been carried in; her color was just a slightly paler version of her usual warm orange and her markings looked normal, rather than faded. She could stand on her own feet, but her hands shook. Her montrals twitched in time with her breathing.

Cody rolled his shoulders; his armor plates clicked against each other. 

“You locked the armory after you stowed all the weaponry inside it?” Rex asked Boil.

“Yes, sir,” Boil said. “Me and Vapor checked the lock twice.”

Cody grunted. His hand clenched over his empty holster.

“And I shook Trip-Sevens down before we approached the airlock,” Boil said. “He’s clean.”

“Carrying a knife’s handy,” Trip-Sevens said. “Snag knows.”

“I’m not having that discussion with you again,” Snag said.

Cody shifted his weight from his right foot to his left and then back again. He should lock down the chatter; it wasn’t professional. Whoever the Senator sent couldn’t be allowed to think they were taking the end of the world lightly, but Cody’s throat hurt. He was tired of speaking.

“How many weapons do you usually carry?” Vapor asked. He leaned out of formation. “And where?”

Rex cleared his throat, and Vapor moved back into his stance. “None of us need to speculate on that.”

“Could be interesting,” Tano said. She had her hands around her lightsaber hilts.

“Sir, it’s really not,” Snag said.

Tano snorted. Silence crept in. Cody could hear the faint sounds of machinery outside the airlock as grapples extended from the ship. On the safety screen bolted to the wall, he saw Senator Organa’s ship lined up with the _Arrow_. 

“Who do you think they’re sending?” Tano asked.

“Could be one of his aides,” Rex said.

His head still felt a little worse for wear, but Cody made himself focus. The Senator’s emissary was probably from his senatorial retinue. Master Yoda never let anyone talk him into anything he didn’t want to do first, but if the Senator, somehow, had rescued him off Kashyyyk, then he’d try to keep him on the ship and send out someone else out to assess the situation. There had been other Jedi on the Wookiee campaign, too, though; the Senator wouldn’t just leave without trying for them all.

Cody looked down at his empty hands. Gree was probably dead. Had it been Master Yoda? General Unduli? He swayed and found his balance again. Boil glanced at him; he waved him off.

“Commander Tano?” Zeer asked. “Permission to ask a question?”

Tano looked over her shoulder, and shifted a montral out of her way. “Yes, Zeer?” 

“How—I mean, what exactly did you do?”

Cody shifted on his feet, and pressed his lips together. Whatever she’d done, it had been unsettling. He’d seen the bridge and what must have been the Alderaanian ship at the same time. 

Just a few minutes to form the seals allowing passage from one ship to another and then the Senator’s emissary would be on board. His chest tightened. He tried to breathe a little more deeply, but the weight of his cuirass seemed too much all of a sudden. 

“The holocron calls it ‘Battle Meditation,’” Tano said, as she turned back around. “And I’m not sure I liked it.” 

Cody shuddered and looked down the short line of his men, the ones he’d dragged from failure to failure since Utapau. It had been…what, two days? Three? It’d taken such a short time to destroy everything Cody had sworn to give his life to uphold and cherish. He’d saved nothing.

“Airlock engaged,” Vapor announced. 

If it had been another rescued Jedi, then they would have felt something by now, or Commander Tano would have mentioned it. Cody’s head would have been buzzing with that quick impersonal brush of a Jedi’s presence, the one they sent out as casually as knocking on a door. He’d never heard the other races mention it, but most of his brothers knew enough to recognize the feeling. Now, there was nothing.

The clang of magnetized bolts rang out through the small space. Cody dragged himself to attention, and saw the men do the same from the corner of his eye. He stared straight ahead. Tano stepped forward with her hands at her sides. Rex hung back. They’d agreed to present as nonthreatening an appearance as possible, with almost everyone present and accounted for. The Senator and Master Yoda probably thought they’d taken Commander Tano prisoner, and no doubt their emissary was instructed to separate her from them as soon as possible.

The airlock door retracted into its preliminary position with a hiss of escaping atmosphere. Cody forced himself to take deep and even breaths. They were a united and unarmed front, loyal clones who just wanted a chance to tell their story. This emissary would not feel threatened.

The emergency lights above the threshold flashed red to green as they cycled through its security countermeasures, nothing poisonous in the atmosphere, seals all holding. Boil fidgeted beside him, knocking his elbow into Cody’s rerebrace. Cody shook his head, and Boil stopped.

The airlock door pulled back, into its final position, and rolled into the hull. Obi-Wan Kenobi stood framed in the threshold, with his deactivated lightsaber held at his side.

“Fierfek,” Boil hissed. Cody heard the stamp of the men’s boots as they broke as one from standing at attention into formal parade rest. Cody froze, unable to follow suit. No, this was not an option. Commander Tano wouldn’t have lied. This was not supposed to be happening, he hadn’t worked out—out anything yet. What was he supposed to—

“Master Obi-Wan?” Commander Tano gasped and stepped forward; her right arm shot out behind her, towards Rex. “The only presence I could feel was Master Yoda!”

“He does loom rather large, doesn’t he?” Obi-Wan stepped over the exposed docking plate of the airlock’s threshold with his head tilted to one side. “I think you’ll find I still have some surprises up my sleeves. As do you, I see.” 

Cody felt his eyes sting. Obi-Wan smiled faintly. He wore the same tan Jedi tunics he’d worn on Utapau, but not his cloak. The lights made his hair seem more red than brown. He’d gotten a shower and run his clothes through a cleaner, obviously, but there were dark greenish stains on the hems of his tabards. His beard was combed. He moved smoothly, and without a hitch to his step, perfectly at ease, which usually meant he was poised to run through whatever unlucky piece of rankweed was in front of him if it so much as coughed funny.

Cody’s chest hurt. He tried to breathe out and made a noise instead. 

Boil grabbed Cody’s wrist. Obi-Wan’s eyes flickered in their direction and then away as he took in the rest of the room. His lightsaber was pointed outward, and Cody could see his thumb poised on the trigger. He couldn’t recognize them in their borrowed armor, and he wasn’t using the Force to sense their individual signatures. Cody couldn’t feel any pressure on his mind; the absence chilled him.

The 501st shuffled in formation, knocking into each other. From the corner of his eye, Cody saw Rivet break ranks and take two steps forward. He stopped; his shoulders rose and fell.

Obi-Wan looked from Tano to Rex. He took a breath that seemed to move his whole body and his smiled.

“Ahsoka,” he said, and grasped her shoulder with his free hand. “I never thought—it appears you’ve been putting your studies to good use.”

Tano wrapped both of her hands around his wrist, right where his gauntlet should have rested, and bent her head slightly. “It’s good to see you, too, Master,” she said. “You have no idea how much.”

She tightened her grip on his wrist, and Obi-Wan inclined his head as well; his eyes softened. The temperature ticked up a degree or two in Cody’s HUD. This was the closest Cody had ever seen the two of them get; Jedi weren’t raised to touch. Rex looked over at Cody, and jerked his helmet in the Jedis’ direction; his hands were clenching and unclenching at his sides.

Cody opened his mouth, but nothing came out. His feet wouldn’t move. He wanted to walk forward—that was his general, that was _Obi-Wan_ —but he couldn’t think. He hadn’t thought about what he was going to say when it happened. Of course it would be now, Obi-Wan always turned up just when Cody was about to—he’d cut it karking close this time, he really had. Cody breathed so quickly his chest shook.

Obi-Wan and the Commander parted; Rex moved forward. He reached out his left arm so that Obi-Wan wouldn’t have to drop his lightsaber before taking Rex’s hand. 

“It’s damned good to see you, sir,” Rex said, and cleared his throat. “I don’t understand how it’s happened, but I won’t look a gift eopie in the mouth.”

Commander Tano hitched her thumbs through her lightsaber belt and snorted. Obi-Wan shook his head. He smiled, but he still gripped his lightsaber and made no move to take Rex’s hand. Rex kept his arm outstretched and his fingers relaxed; his helmet tilted to the right.

“Captain Rex,” Obi-Wan said finally. He reached out and clasped Rex’s arm just below the elbow. “I told Anakin if anyone could find our lost padawan, it would be you, but I can’t say I expected the reunion to be under circumstances such as these.”

“Considering what we thought before you came through that airlock, General,” Rex said. “I’ll take a few more surprises like this one any time.”

Obi-Wan nodded. They released each other’s arms, and Rex stepped back to Commander Tano’s side. She looked up at him, and they nodded. Obi-Wan’s shoulders fell and then straightened. He took a breath. 

“I’m so sorry, Rex,” he said. “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but the army is in revolt. I barely escaped Utapau with my life.”

Boil’s hand tightened on Cody’s wrist. “Sir, say something,” he whispered.

Cody’s throat clenched; his stomach turned over. He shook his head. Obi-Wan looked tired, and his skin was too pale. Cody had tried to murder him. 

“We’ve gotten reports from all over Republic space, General,” Rex said, and cleared his throat. “But you should know—”

“Ba’vodu, sir,” Rivet said suddenly. He took another step forward. 

Obi-Wan whirled around, lightsaber screaming to life as his arm swung back into charge position. Rivet stumbled backwards with both hands out as if the crackling blue shaft of Obi-Wan’s lightsaber wasn’t a hairsbreadth from dicing him into smoking chunks. The men bunched together tightly; Boil stayed by Cody.

“Master, no!” Tano yelled.

“ _Rivet?_ ” Obi-Wan asked. He stared; his arm held steady. 

“General Kenobi, it’s not what you think,” Boil said. He stepped forward as well, still keeping his grip on Cody. 

Obi-Wan looked around the room, taking them all in as one by one the men removed their helmets. His eyes lingered on the bacta bandages on their scalps. “Snag? Sergeant Boil? How did you get here? Why are you wearing blue?” 

“Commander Cody brought us, sir,” Juri said. He licked his lips and glanced between Obi-Wan and Cody. “Stole us right off the _Vigilance_ after you didn’t make the rendezvous point.”

The air thickened in Cody’s lungs as Obi-Wan slowly turned his head and stared at him full in the face. He saw Obi-Wan’s eyes widen, his face go slack. The lightsaber deactivated. 

Boil dropped Cody’s arm. Cody’s hands trembled so hard he had to clench them into fists. Obi-Wan was here. He stepped forward and breathed in. A soft shaking pressure touched his mind, like fingertips brushing across his cheeks. 

“Safe, it is, hmm? Eager I am to see the youngling who went to such trouble to seek us.”

 _Yoda_.

Cody snapped to attention along with the men. In front of him, Obi-Wan’s chin raised; his face tightened. He turned towards the airlock, and hooked his lightsaber to his belt.

“It would appear so, Master,” Obi-Wan said. The line of his back was smooth and straight, but one of his shoulders was set higher than the other. He was hurt. 

The sharp taps of Master Yoda’s stick rapped out along the deck as he came into view just ahead of Senator Organa. A calm, implacable authority spread its focus around the room: the Grandmaster’s own presence. The Senator spread his hands, palms up, as he walked onto the _Arrow_. He was dressed in grey, and his belt had an empty holster attachment.

“Would this be your evidence, Mistress Tano?” he asked, and smiled as he glanced around the room.

“It would, Senator Organa,” Commander Tano said. She crossed her hands over her stomach, and bowed slightly from the waist. “Master Yoda, I’m glad to see you’re all right, as well.”

Yoda looked up at her, turning his walking stick in between his hands. His long pointed ears dipped. “So much noise,” he said. “Not since your master was young have I heard such disturbance in the Force. Glad I am to see not all your lessons have you forgot, young one.”

Tano looked to Obi-Wan before standing up out of her bow. “I had to learn it from somewhere, Master,” she said.

Cody saw Rivet and Boil glance at each other. They fell back towards his position, one on either side. Cody closed his eyes, and forced himself to breathe in and out. Master Yoda’s ears were twitching; he was sensitive to currents in the Force. Cody pictured a flash shield, temporary but impenetrable, built out of calm and readiness, and the feeling of preparation he had before a battle, with his nerves and heart and—and everything else tucked behind it. He was just a soldier, ready to work; he felt nothing to disturb the Force. He opened his eyes, and caught Tano staring at him.

“We would be the evidence, yes, Senator, Master Jedi,” Cody said, and his voice did not waver. He did not look at Obi-Wan. He saw Rex glance towards him and nodded sharply. He was a Marshal Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic and he would do his duty. Cody pressed his hands together behind his back. “If you’ll follow us to the ship’s debriefing room, we can provide further proof.”

“Then go with you we will,” Master Yoda said. He held his stick in both clawed hands, and led the way off the deck.

 

***

 

Cody had tried to tell himself it was only another briefing, just another chain in a long line of strategy sessions, but it was a karking thin lie. It was clear the Jedi hadn’t wanted to put their backs to the men. He and Rex had taken the seats furthest from the door, and crowded their squads towards the projection wall behind them. Apart from Del at the helm on the bridge and Twenty-Three, they were all in line of sight. Senator Organa and the Jedi sat at the other end, with Commander Tano sat mid-way between the two groups. Rex sat at her left elbow. 

The labeled slides lay in the middle of the table in a loose spill. Rivet and Kix had stacked them neatly in a carry case, but by the time they’d finished with the explanations their chips had all been taken out to show as proof. Cody tugged on the lip of his helmet; his scalp itched. No one had spoken since Rivet and Kix had finished their reports. 

Yoda sighed and shook his head. Cody risked a glance down the table. Obi-Wan was leaning back in his chair with one hand stroking his beard and his left arm around his chest, his hand tucked into the crook of his elbow. He was staring at the chips.

Senator Organa put both hands on the table and leaned forward. He shook his head and grimaced as he eyed the center of the table. “This is obscene,” he said, finally. “It’s an _abomination._ ”

A knot loosened in Cody’s stomach. He took a deep breath. Next to him, Rivet slid both hands across his tattooed cheeks and nodded. Obi-Wan stretched out his hand, palm out, and twisted his wrist until his palm faced the ceiling. Five of the tiles rose from the table and hung in the air. He curled his fingers, and the slides tumbled closer to him. 

“It’s the truth, though, Senator,” Rex said, frowning. “We received the same order as the rest of the Fleet, through secure channels.” Rex looked down at his lap. His jaw clenched. “Half my men went insane, just like Tup on Ringo Vinda.” 

Tano bowed her head. “Captain Rex saved my life,” she said. “He and the rest of the boys threw themselves between me and my attackers.”

Yoda’s left ear rose. “Fortunate you were, young Ahsoka,” he said.

“I was, Master,” she said, and lifted her head. She cleared throat. “The signal came through the GAR’s secure all-systems channel. No one has access to that but the Jedi Order and the highest levels of the Senate.”

Cody glanced at Rex. Rex shrugged tightly and crossed his arms. Obi-Wan inhaled and exhaled slowly. He shook his head and looked across the table. His gaze went from Rex to the men arranged at his back. Obi-Wan’s breath hitched as his gaze passed over Cody and settled where Rivet sat by Cody’s side. 

“I’m so sorry,” he said as he stared down at the table top.

Cody’s hands ached from clenching them so hard underneath the table. He wanted to press his hands against his eyes to stop the building ache behind them. He wanted to be across the table, wrapped around Obi-Wan so closely that nothing could separate them. He wanted to run. What was Obi-Wan sorry for? They’d tried to murder him. He was still favoring his shoulder; he had to go to MedBay so Rivet could look him over.

Rex paused, and cleared his throat. He looked about as comfortable as Cody felt. “We had advanced knowledge, sirs. Fives was a good man,” Rex said. “He tried, but…he tried his best.”

Yoda nodded. “Warned we were,” he said. “Heeded we did not.”

“And yet it seems that a few members of the 501st were able to resist these chips,” Senator Organa said. He leaned one arm on his chair and gestured with the other. 

Tano smiled briefly. “Saved my life.” 

“Indeed, Mistress Tano,” Senator Organa said. “But how were the clones able to resist?”

“It wasn’t so much that we resisted, sir. My chip was accidentally disabled in the field,” Rex said. “So were Zeer’s, Del’s, and Attie’s, but no one else. I lost some good men when the Order went live.”

“And Commander Tano knocked the rest of us out pretty karking—uh, very quickly, sirs,” Vapor said, from where he stood behind Tano’s shoulder.

“I had removed my chip prior to the event,” Kix said. “Mine and a few others.”

“And the 212th?” Obi-Wan asked. Cody saw his lips press together briefly as he looked at Rivet.

Cody cleared his throat. This was just another karking debrief; they were soldiers. “No one in the battalion underwent the operation, sir,” he said.

Obi-Wan blinked rapidly and nodded. Wrinkles crinkled his forehead as he stroked his beard again. “I see.”

The medics’ chairs squeaked as they shifted in their seats. Cody looked over. 

Kix winced. “That’s…not strictly true, Commander,” he said.

He fidgeted with the flimsi in his hands. Cody leaned back in his chair, and bit the inside of his cheek. He pictured the full charge on his flash shield in his head, and how it would keep everything in, before taking a deep breath. This was just another briefing; it would pass. He was a good soldier.

“What do you mean?” Cody asked.

“After Arc Trooper Fives’ death, there was a fair bit of scuttlebutt around the GAR, sir,” Kix said. “And…well—”

“Medics talk to each other,” Kix interrupted. “We compare notes on anything we find in the field, just in case. Once the story on the chips got out we started taking volunteers for removal.”

Cody felt his face heat and then turn cold. His brothers had held the line where Cody had retreated; they’d stretched themselves thinner to take his place in the shield wall that was supposed to protect everyone, clones and Jedi alike. He shifted in his chair and pressed his lips together. Force take everything.

“You’ve been performing surgery on the sly?” Obi-Wan asked. One corner of his mouth lifted.

“Only on their off-duty hours, General,” Rivet said. “Not a lot of the brothers wanted to believe the story, to be honest I didn’t myself, but there are a number of unchipped brothers remaining in the GAR.”

“Ghost Company?” Cody asked. 

Rivet nodded. “Among the first,” he said. “Just a precaution.”

Cody held still and let his breath flow in and out of his chest. His gauntlets clicked against his thigh plates as he clenched his fists. No wonder Crys and the others had run when the news had come in that Obi-Wan was MIA. Cody’s throat tightened. Rivet wasn’t looking at Cody; he probably felt the same sting. When Rex had come to him with his story, Cody hadn’t believed, and the 212th was suffering for it. Obi-Wan could have karking _died_. He looked at Obi-Wan, and found his eye caught at the neat ruff of reddish beard at his jawline. Obi-Wan’s neck had a raised welt along the side with a thin brown scab running through it. Cody’s fingers twitched. 

“But not you, Commander Cody,” Obi-Wan said, very calmly. His hand came up and covered the mark. His knuckles were scraped; he fixed his inner collar so that the welt completely disappeared.

Cody forced himself to meet Obi-Wan’s eyes. “No, General,” he answered. “Not me.”

Obi-Wan nodded and crossed both his arms over his chest. He held himself when he felt unsure and pretended he was just thinking; Cody had seen it too many times. He’d dedicated hours to freeing him from the need for that habit. Cody swallowed. 

“The Force was with you, then,” Senator Organa said. He had sharp eyes; Cody saw them flick between himself and Obi-Wan as he leaned forward. “To be able to break free of this control chip without having it first removed must have been painful.”

“Senator, you have no idea,” Commander Tano said. She leaned on the table with her left elbow. “From what I saw on the bridge when the 501st’s chips activated, the pain of obeying the chip is nothing to how much fighting it hurts.”

Except he hadn’t fought it. Cody shook his head. He’d been just as affected as everyone else, unable to do anything but attack if he thought a Jedi was even remotely in his vicinity. He couldn’t take karking credit for a strength he didn’t have. It had—it had let him chase Obi-Wan, because of what he would have done when they’d caught up. He leaned forward, and tugged on the lip of his helmet. He opened his mouth to confess, and felt a touch against his mind, the pressure of a hand against his shoulder beneath his pauldron. He looked over, and Tano was watching him. She shook her head slightly. Cody closed his mouth. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Obi-Wan frown.

“During the chaos following the battle and Order 66, it was Commander Cody who stole the shuttle to get us here with the evidence,” Rivet said.

“Captain Rex had the plan,” Cody said. “All I did was walk through the shuttle bay.”

“I know it couldn’t have been easy,” Obi-Wan said. Cody looked up; their eyes met again. “I felt your mind, I believe, when the order came through.”

“Rage,” Master Yoda said, nodding. He hummed to himself, and twisted his stick in his hands. “Blind and savage.”

“But not theirs, Master,” Obi-Wan said, and turned his head to face Master Yoda. “The anger I felt, the…almost dreamlike state of confusion. When I sensed the clones’ presences in the Force change, I didn’t have time to understand it, but if it was artificially imposed by these chips, then that would explain the more shield-like aspects I perceived once I escaped the planet.”

Yoda’s ears twitched. “Felt you this anger more than once?” he asked.

Cody’s eyes widened. Obi-Wan _had_ tried to contact him back on the _Vigilance_ ; it hadn’t just been his own sense of reality playing tricks. 

Obi-Wan cleared his throat and leaned back in his chair, the picture of relaxation, which was usually the only warning an enemy got before negotiations turned aggressive.

Juri suddenly leaned over Cody’s shoulder. “Master Yoda, as fast we hyped out after the General’s shuttle, I’m surprised you didn’t feel it! You should have seen it, General Kenobi, the Commander snuck us right out in the 501st‘s wake.”

“It was just like _Squad Theta from Vistathonne_ ,” Trip-Sevens said a little too loudly.

Master Yoda’s eyes slowly drifted closed. Cody could feel the press of his men standing more closely around the back of his chair. Senator Organa looked amused.

Obi-Wan raised his eyebrows. “Sounds exciting,” he said. “Who was the Wookiee?”

“Juri,” Snag said. “But only because he insisted.”

“I just _am_ Krallathyyyr, sir.”

“I’m sure that’s very apt, Corporal,” Obi-Wan said.

“Well,” the Senator interrupted. “That aside, what are we going to do with this information? The clones are placed not simply throughout our military, but our judicial forces as well.”

Obi-Wan sighed and nodded. “You have a point,” he said.

One of Rex’s men leaned down to whisper in Rex’s ear. Rex glanced up and smiled crookedly. “You sure you don’t want to make the suggestion yourself, Attie?” he asked.

Attie shook his head and ducked his chin. He stepped back from the table and rubbed his hands together as if cold. Without his helmet, Cody could see the outline of an Ithorian Rose high up on Attie’s temple, the flowering bud cradled within the twisting three inch long thorns. 

“Private Attie makes the suggestion that we take our case directly to key members of the Senate,” Rex said, “such as Senator Amidala or Senator Chuchi, and gather support before attempting to reach out to the larger body. We have the chips, and my men are prepared to swear to the events prior to and immediately after Order 66. Stang, sirs, my pilot stood up mid-flight to fire at Commander Tano.” He coughed. “Uh, pardon my language, sirs.”

“Yes, Rex,” Obi-Wan said. “In times such as these, one must always remember to mind one’s manners. There are Senators present.”

Senator Organa snorted. “I’ll try to calm my blushes, Master Obi-Wan.”

Yoda rapped his stick against the table. “To the matter at hand, attend we must,” he said. “The Senate, we cannot approach.”

“When I left Coruscant, it was ahead of a Capital Guard patrol,” Senator Organa said. “I fear my fellow politicians are trapped in their residences until further notice.” He grimaced and shook his head. “For their own safety.” 

“What about the Judiciary?” Rex asked. 

“Tainted by the same evil which clouds the galaxy,” Yoda said. “Even now feel its shadow, do I.”

Cody clicked his teeth together and resisted the urge to waggle his helmet. If it was so easy to feel evil now, why hadn’t the Order’s own Grandmaster felt its presence before? The Jedi were supposed to be better than that. He bit his lip and chewed, catching a piece of dry skin between his teeth. 

A soft clatter of slides drew Cody’s attention. Yoda had called two of them out of the pile to hang in front of his wide set eyes. His left ear dipped. Obi-Wan’s clutch of slides was still spread out in front of him. He studied them, tilting them in the air to view the labels, but Cody couldn’t tell whose chips they were. The set of Obi-Wan’s mouth seemed brittle, and he held himself too stiffly in his chair. Rivet really needed to look at him; there was no telling what the fall had damaged, and a Senator’s corvette wouldn’t come equipped with more than a med droid.

“They’re so small,” Obi-Wan murmured. “Such…”

He frowned and crooked two fingers. Three slides moved farther away as the rest moved forwards. “Rivet, are these cross-sections of the bio-chips?”

Rivet glanced at Cody before answering. “No sir,” he said, leaning forward. “Or, at least, I didn’t make any.”

“I did, General Kenobi,” Kix said. “We had some downtime waiting for Commander Cody and his squad. I thought it might be helpful. There are cross sections for fused and unfused chips.”

“Good thinking,” Obi-Wan said. He nodded, his eyes still on the slides. He crooked his pinkie and a third slide moved to the front. “The design of these wires seems familiar. Master, do you recognize them?”

Obi-Wan waved his hand towards Yoda and sent all five slides his way. Yoda caught the slides above his fist and added them to his own pair. With a flick of his claws, all seven angled to catch the light as he studied them. Slowly, his ears rose as his black eyes widened.

“Captain Rex, this belongs to,” he said. “And there, the 212th.”

“Yes,” Obi-Wan said, and cleared his throat. “But the wiring on the chips…we never saw that during the Council’s examination of the chip removed from Trooper Tup.”

“Looking, but not seeing were we,” Master Yoda said, still examining the chips.

“Trooper Tup?” Senator Organa asked.

“CT-5385,” Rex said. “He and General Tiplar were the first casualties of Order 66.”

Senator Organa nodded slowly. “My condolences, gentlemen.”

“Sir,” Rex said.

“Sith, they are,” Yoda declared, and sent the chips scattering across the table with a snap of his hand. “Recognize their design from captured holocrons, I do. Damning does Master Windu’s message become.”

“Master Windu’s message?” Senator Organa asked.

“ _Sith_ designs?” Obi-Wan repeated. He straightened in his chair, and Cody caught him wince before his face smoothed again.

“Clear it now is, the end game of Sifo-Dyas and Count Dooku,” Yoda said. “Looked outward did we, and never our minds on what treachery lay within.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Senator Organa said. “Count Dooku? How could the Count be responsible for this?”

Obi-Wan bowed his head. Senator Organa frowned and glanced down the table. Cody shifted in his chair and shook his head. He looked to Tano, who spread her hands.

“Several missions ago,” Obi-Wan said slowly, without looking at anyone, “it was discovered that the funds Sifo-Dyas used as a down payment for the first generation of clones belonged to a company used as a front by Count Dooku.”

“ _Who_ discovered that, Master Kenobi?” Senator Organa asked, his voice sharpened. 

Obi-Wan sighed. He frowned, drawing lines down the sides of his face. Cody’s stomach twisted and pushed acid up his throat. So they had always been made to kill the Jedi, not to protect them; they’d been destined for it. Behind him, he could hear the brothers whispering, the click of their armor plates against one another, like they were podlings fresh from the batch who didn’t know better than to bunch together.

“Believed the Jedi Council did, that detrimental to the war effort would this information be,” Yoda said. “Not the fault of the clones, were the circumstances of their birth.”

“I don’t understand, sirs,” Cody said. He licked his lips and swallowed. “How could Master Sifo-Dyas not know where his credits were coming from?”

“Impatient was Sifo-Dyas,” Yoda said, and nodded to himself. “Ever did his mind see the worst result and rush to the most expedient solution.”

“I was forbidden to tell anyone,” Obi-Wan added. His eyes flicked up to meet the Senator’s, and then around the room. “The Council wished to maintain secrecy until such a time as we had concrete evidence of who had diverted the funds.”

“It wasn’t the Count?” Senator Organa asked.

“Serenno’s own funds weren’t touched, and according to the Pyke’s accounting records, Dooku primarily acted as an intermediary,” Obi-Wan said.

“The Order certainly has been busy,” Senator Organa said. “But if it wasn’t the Count, then who had final authority over the credits? Who sent out the Order?”

Cody took a deep breath. “I received Order 66 via my personal comm unit, General Kenobi,” he managed, and pictured that flash shield burning bright gold in his mind. “From the Supreme Chancellor himself.”

The quiet rushed over the room like a sneaker wave as first the Senator’s and then the Jedis’ faces’ turned grim. Cody didn’t turn around to look at the men, even though he could hear them fidgeting behind him. He opened his hands to grip the edges of his thigh guards, sinking his fingers beneath the plates and into the dense weave of his bodyglove. He focused on his breathing, and concentrated on the tickle of air across his lips as it filtered through his helmet. 

“Your personal comm unit?” Obi-Wan repeated. 

Cody nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Obi-Wan’s face stiffened. He tilted his head to the side and his eyelids lowered. “Really,” he said.

“Then corroborated Knight Skywalker’s accusation is,” Yoda said.

Obi-Wan whipped his head around, and Cody saw the corners of his eyes tighten. He’d strained his neck again. 

“Anakin?” Obi-Wan asked. “What accusation?”

Tano leaned forward, both arms on the table. “You’ve heard from him?” she asked. “When?”

Master Yoda sighed and shook his head. His wrinkled lips tightened. The room fell quiet. Rex had his arms crossed over his chest; he frowned and his eyebrows drew together hard enough to wrinkle his forehead. 

“On his way to Chancellor Palpatine’s offices Master Windu was,” Master Yoda began slowly, and as he spoke the gravel in his voice grew louder. “when stopped the delegation Skywalker did. Claimed did he that Palpatine had confessed to using the Dark Side, that a Sith Lord he was.”

“Oh, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said quietly. He rubbed his hand over his mouth, brushing aside his mustache.

“Master Windu and Skyguy went after the Chancellor?” Tano asked. Her face turned pale enough to blur the edges of her markings. “Force surrounding us, the _Chancellor_ …”

“Begging your pardon, Master Yoda,” Kix said. “I…was aware of Trooper Fives’ accusations against the Supreme Chancellor, but I don’t know what a Sith is.”

“That’s the barve General Kenobi killed when he was a Commander, right, sir?” Boil asked. He leaned against Cody’s left arm.

Cody nodded once. “Yeah…yes.” 

“I was lucky,” Obi-Wan said, and shook his head when the men scoffed. “The Sith are the ancient enemy of the Jedi, our opposites in philosophy and power.”

“Cruelty and hate their tools are,” Master Yoda said. “and the destruction of all life, their goal. The Dark Side of the Force is their ally.”

Senator Organa sat back in his chair, and took a deep breath. He stared off into nothing, and frowned. The lines appearing in his face made him seem older, but Cody wasn’t a good judge of birthborns’ ages.

“It can’t be true,” Vapor said. He leaned across the table, braced on the chair next to Rex. “Captain, he’s the head of the Republic, we’ve _died_ for him.”

“To confront the Chancellor a delegation from the Council went,” Master Yoda said. “Unsure whether to believe Knight Skywalker, Master Windu was. Informed was I before Order 66 was given.”

“I’d say this is all the proof we need, masters,” Tano said. “We have to get to Coruscant—we have to tell someone!”

A horrible pressure burst in Cody’s chest, like he’d stepped too close to a thermal detonator. That was it, this was why his men had killed themselves, this was why Healer Tan-Oshi and Commander Athonjo had died. His head hurt; his throat dried to the point of pain. He swallowed a bitter acid taste back down to his stomach. _Coruscanta a'den mhi, Vode an._

Across from him Rex sat in his chair, eyes wide and shoulders slumped. His men stood silently behind him. Commander Tano looked from Master Yoda to Obi-Wan.

“We were headed to Coruscant when you intercepted us, Mistress Tano,” Senator Organa said. He hunched forward with arms folded over his chest. “When I was forced away from the massacre at the Jedi Temple—”

“You’ve been to the Temple, sir?” Kix interrupted sharply. His hands fidgeted with his flimsies.

Senator Organa nodded. “When the explosions began at the Temple, I went to offer my assistance, but I was ordered to leave by GAR forces when—” He paused and pursed his lips. “I was ordered away by Captain Appo, and immediately launched my ship to provide aid to any Jedi I could intercept.”

Cody turned away from the Senator’s frown, and found himself facing his brothers. Rex’s face was a tight mask. Behind Rex, Zeer had his back to the table, and Vapor was flashing signs rapidly at waist level, finger spelling a private conversation. Out of the corner of Cody’s eye, Trip-Sevens’ hands were skittering along the edges of his cuirass; his fingers shook. This had to be the longest he’d been unarmed since the ambush on Forven 9. Cody shifted in his chair. They didn’t have weapons, not with the Jedi there, but perhaps if he could be excused— 

A small hilt flew across the table. Trip-Sevens caught it one-handed, and hit the switch to activate the blade. He heaved a sigh. The men froze; Cody dipped his hand under the table and clenched a fist over his empty holster.

“I will need that back,” Obi-Wan said. “But I hope you will keep it safe in the meantime.”

The blade shook, and then Trip-Sevens deactivated the vibroblade. He clutched the hilt to his chest. “Thank you, Ba—sir,” he said.

Cody caught Rex’s eye; Rex nodded and rubbed his hand over his face. The pressure on Cody’s shoulder went away. He focused on his breathing.

“The Force has always liked you, Bail,” Obi-Wan said. He lifted his chin and smiled briefly.

Senator Organa snorted. “Let’s hope that luck holds.”

“Believe we not in luck,” Master Yoda said, and twisted his walking stick in his hands.

“As Bail said, we were returning to Coruscant when Ahsoka contacted us.” Obi-Wan glanced at Rex and then past him to the men. His eyes lingered on their faces. Cody fought the urge to lean into his line of sight; Obi’Wan’s hands had disappeared into his sleeves. “Will you be joining us?”

“Straight to the Chancellor’s hospital room?” Tano asked. “The last report the _Arrow _received was that Palpatine was wounded in a Jedi attack.”__

__The men stirred again. Cody lifted his hand, forcing it not to shake, and they settled. The Senator looked over at Obi-Wan and then Yoda; he raised his bushy eyebrows. Master Yoda sighed._ _

__“The Temple comms have been set to transmit a signal recalling us—all remaining Jedi,” Obi-Wan said. “We were on our way to shut it down. I imagine that’s where Anakin will be as well.”_ _

__Of course he had been. Cody clenched his hands slowly into fists. Of course. Obi-Wan wouldn’t have gone to Senator Amidala’s skyhouse, or hidden with his friend Organa. No, Obi-Wan had been going to the Temple crawling with chipped brothers. He should have karking known, the blasted _di’kut_._ _

__“The Temple…is where the last complete report placed General Skywalker,” Rex said. “But none of them mentioned…” He looked down at the tabletop and then at Tano. “I mean, either way, sir.”_ _

__Obi-Wan snorted and grinned down at his hands. “Oh, he’s not dead,” he said and looked up. He tapped his chest with two fingers. “At least, not yet. I would know.”_ _

__Rex sat back in his chair and took a long deep breath. Tano smiled at him. “Told you,” she said quietly._ _

__Rivet nodded to Kix. Kix looked down at the table._ _

__“If you’re going to the Temple, General,” Rex said, “then—”_ _

__“We’re going with you,” Cody interrupted. His throat tightened, but he breathed through it. “If you try to infiltrate the Temple you’ll have every trooper from the 501st on your shebs as soon as they hear Master Yoda’s walking stick.”_ _

__“Our home this is,” Master Yoda said. “Know its paths we do.”_ _

__Cody frowned. “And so do we, sir. It’s our business to know.”_ _

__As soon as he’d been fast-tracked to command, it had been Cody’s responsibility to commit the Jedi Temple’s blueprints to memory. In a worst case scenario, he could repel a Separatist incursion from anywhere, from the crèche to the High Council’s spire. It was SOP that any clone who’d reached the rank of company commander be able to exfil under fire from the Temple. As a Marshal Commander, Cody even had—_ _

__Cody’s mouth parted. He felt dry filtered air on his tongue. He had the master unlock code for every door in the Temple. If he’d been on-site when the Order had come through... He clenched his teeth together. He felt all the aches in his body at once. The sense of a hand on his shoulder came back to him, and he glanced over at Tano. She was frowning, and he shook his head at her._ _

__Senator Organa blew out his breath. Cody kept his head level. If his Jedi was going into…into the slaughterhouse the army had created, then Cody was wading in right next to him. He’d come this far, hadn’t he? It was only one step more._ _

__“We’re all already wearing blue,” Trip-Sevens said. “We could pretend we’re a shift change or something.”_ _

__“Clone casualty rates are pretty high on the Temple grounds,” Rex said. Yoda hmm’d as he spoke. “Wouldn’t be hard to slip in and pretend to patrol. Maybe we could pretend to take prisoners.”_ _

__Obi-Wan nodded to himself. “If,” he said. Lines appeared on his face before he got control of himself again. “Master, if I could get a spare set of armor, then I could walk in with the patrol while you and Ahsoka avoided detection through the maintenance corridors.”_ _

__He tilted his head and frowned when Master Yoda closed his eyes. Master Yoda’s ears waved and bobbed. The temperature rose in Cody’s HUD, but he felt cold, as if a door had opened on the hull and atmo was leaching out. Cody slowed his breathing. He nodded at Rex, who narrowed his eyes and nodded back. Senator Organa’s chair creaked. Obi-Wan had his thumb to his lips, rubbing over and over. Cody wanted to fold his hands over Obi-Wan’s and keep them still._ _

__“I’ll go,” Kix said suddenly. “I’ll go to the Temple. You’ll need a medic.”_ _

__Master Yoda’s eyes widened, one after the other. “Will we indeed?” he asked. The heavy cold snapped off like a switch. “Not to a battle do we run, but the grave of a defeat.”_ _

__Kix looked away._ _

__“But if there are any survivors, Master Yoda,” Senator Organa said. He leaned towards the end of the table. “Any fugitive Jedi who have already answered the call…”_ _

__“And if we are discovered?” Obi-Wan asked quietly. “Do you really want to fight your brothers?”_ _

__He didn’t have to add the “again.” Rex sighed heavily. The small amount of noise in the room collapsed into quiet. Cody looked to his right, where the 212th were grouped. Trip-Sevens was flipping Obi-Wan’s vibroblade between his fingers. Snag was hugging himself, shifting his weight on his feet. Cody turned his head and faced Obi-Wan. He focused on that bright gleaming shield in his mind. Thank the Force for his helmet._ _

__“If we go in fast and head straight for the comms tower, then we’ll stand the best chance of avoiding detection,” Cody said. His stomach muscles tightened and his heartbeat shook his chest. “It could work.”_ _

__“Oya,” Boil said. “We go where you do, General.”_ _

__“Oya,” Kix repeated, and it went down the line from the 501st to the 212th._ _

__Obi-Wan’s face remained steady, but his eyes widened. He nodded and tightened his arms around himself, twitching his sleeves higher over the backs of his hands._ _

__Tano leaned towards him. “And since I’ve already been counted in, how could I not come along?”_ _

__“Ah,” Obi-Wan paused. “Well, I—”_ _

__“Oh, I was never not going to go. Skyguy’s in there,” Tano said over him. “And I bet it’s going to take all of us to get him out.”_ _

__A smile lifted the corner of Obi-Wan’s mouth. “At least he’s usually easy to find.”_ _

__“Then to Coruscant we shall go,” Master Yoda announced, and rapped his stick against the table. “Once the signal is shut off, to Palpatine can we turn. Senator Organa, know you who will support our claims?”_ _

__“I do,” Senator Organa said. “And I know exactly who can start gathering the votes.”_ _

__“You can fly in as my escort ship, Captain Rex.” He stood and his short brown cape fell down his arm. He flipped it back over his shoulder. “I assume I can provide cover at least, now that there is no need for me to act as your pilot directly, Masters. I will direct my embassy to keep a landing pad and flight path open for you. Captain, do you have a slicer who can change ship registrations if Alderaan provides the necessary permissions?”_ _

__Rex stood as well. “Faster than a Corellian from a Sabaac table, Senator.”_ _

__The senator smiled. Cody turned his attention down the table. Obi-Wan hadn’t stood up. He was looking at the pile of evidence slides left on the table. He reached out with two fingers extended and crooked them. One of slides slithered out from underneath its brothers and into his palm, and Obi-Wan clenched his hand into a fist around it._ _

__“Well, Master Jedi,” Senator Organa said. “Shall we return to the Tantive III?”_ _

__Cody stiffened in his chair. Someone’s armor clacked. He looked up; Juri had walked into the back of his chair. “No,” someone said at the back, and was shushed. Commander Tano stood up and put her hand out._ _

__“Actually,” she said. “Shouldn’t Master Obi-Wan stay and get kitted out?”_ _

__A light poke teased Cody’s mind, and Tano winked at him. Cody held his breath. He didn’t want—Obi-Wan might want to go back—he should—he should do what he wanted. Cody couldn’t ask him to stay on board just because he didn’t want to lose sight of him ever again. Before Utapau, he might have had the right to, but after everything that had happened, Cody couldn’t._ _

__“You have a point, Ahsoka,” Obi-Wan said. “If there’s enough to spare in the Captain’s armory after the—” He stood up and breathed in too quickly. He wavered on his feet, and pressed a hand to his side. Cody felt himself begin to reach out, and tucked his hands behind his back instead._ _

__“Sir,” Rivet said sharply. “Have you let the medics check you out after—I—I mean…”_ _

__He trailed away with a cough. Cody shook his head. Since his own battalion had blasted him off a rock face into silty water. It must’ve been like hitting duracrete from five levels up._ _

__“Unfortunately,” Senator Organa said, smoothing over the silence. “My ship isn’t staffed with dedicated medical personnel. Master Kenobi informed us that he was fine.”_ _

__“I am fine,” Obi-Wan insisted. “Just a few bumps and bruises. Nothing I had any trouble dealing with myself.”_ _

__“You fell off a _cliff_ ,” Cody’s voice cracked, and he spoke a little too loudly._ _

__Obi-Wan rubbed his hand over his mouth and winced._ _

__“You forgot to mention that,” Senator Organa said._ _

__“With this medic shall you go,” Master Yoda said. “And plan with Captain Rex our infiltration I shall.”_ _

__Cody kept himself very still. Rex startled and looked over at him. He opened his mouth, and Cody shook his head quickly. It made sense that Master Yoda would want the officer who’d kept his head, rather than the clone who’d shot his general down, even if he had to skip down the chain of command to do it._ _

__“Commander Cody, if outfit Master Kenobi you will,” Master Yoda continued. “Senator Organa, a moment of your time.”_ _

__Obi-Wan bowed, but not as low as he usually did. “Yes, Master.”_ _

__“Of course, Master Yoda,” the Senator said. He bowed from the waist._ _

__Master Yoda turned his chair to the side and dropped to the floor; Cody heard the clicks of his clawed feet on the deck plates and then the sharp tap of his stick. Cody stood back from the table to let the medics pass him so they could move towards Obi-Wan. He could hear Snag whispering to Trip-Sevens about showing Obi-Wan the way to MedBay._ _

__Obi-Wan moved towards the door. The Senator and Master Yoda preceded him; the door swished closed behind them. Rex walked closer to him and stuck his hand out again. Obi-Wan clasped it._ _

__“Rex, I…” Obi-Wan shook his head. “I can’t believe it.”_ _

__“I can’t believe the Jedi actually _are_ going to overthrow the Chancellor, sir,” Rex said._ _

__Obi-Wan blinked. He flicked his eyes back towards Commander Tano. She shrugged. “At least it’s not the Republic?”_ _

__Cody felt a chuckle bubble up in his chest and lodge in his throat. He managed to stifle it partway out his mouth. Boil snickered. Obi-Wan let go of Rex’s arm, and ran his hand back through his reddish hair. He glanced at Cody, and then smiled slightly._ _

__“Yes, well, it is the little things, isn’t it,” he said._ _

__

__***_ _

__

__Cody paused outside the armory’s doors with his hand hovering over the entry button. Obi-Wan’s pack bumped against the side of his leg; he’d grabbed it from the bunkroom after the meeting had broken up. He’d ordered Boil to take the men down to the mess for dinner. If they were going to the Temple, they’d need a meal in their bellies. He’d even managed a flash-pack himself. Well, half of one anyway, but he’d wound up with the stewed prantha berry again, and that kriffing slop made him queasy._ _

__His head felt scrubbed clean, hollow almost. He imagined the flash shield in his mind sputtering, lit up with blaster bolts from inside. He shifted his grip on Obi-Wan’s pack. It wasn’t heavy. He should get in there, see what Rex had that could fit Obi-Wan. He pressed the entry button, and stepped inside the armory._ _

__The gun racks and armor lockers lining the inside of the armory—well, the lower cargo deck, really—were all portable, and strapped down to the floor and walls. Rex had ordered camp benches secured to the deck. Cody dropped Obi-Wan’s pack onto one of the benches._ _

__Fierfek, Obi-Wan was alive. He was _alive.__ _

__His face felt hot. He shook his head. He needed to get himself back under control before Rivet finished his examination. He drew in air through his mouth and blew it out through his nose. There was a light at the center of his mind; he just had to find it again. He inhaled and then exhaled again, tilting his head towards the ceiling._ _

__Force take it, he should have been in MedBay with Obi-Wan. Or, if he couldn’t be there, he should have been strategizing their infiltration of the Temple: protecting the General’s interests if he couldn’t be supervising his welfare. He’d tried to kill Obi-Wan. How did anyone karking apologize for that? ”Sorry about the mind control, it wasn’t my idea?”_ _

__Cody readjusted his helmet and lowered his chin. There was no time for this. Thanks to the FT, they were a jump away from Coruscant and then they’d be wading hip-deep in skalka eels at the Temple. Karking hell, it was going to be a stang-storm._ _

__And he’d better find Obi-Wan armor before the stang hit him; even something that didn’t quite fit was better than the deterrence textiles he usually insisted on. Cody sighed. He stood and keyed open the three armor lockers behind him. It looked as if Rex had ordered the armor in regulation patterns, lightest to heaviest. The locker in the middle was full of the castoffs he and the men had escaped the _Vigilance_ in. Cody touched a greave riddled with puncture damage down the calf. Karking crazy bastards had followed him all the way here, and look where they’d ended up._ _

__If it’d been half a week ago, Cody would have paid good credits to fit Obi-Wan for his own set of yellow-striped plates. Jedi quartermasters traditionally focused on weaving armored fabrics, great for diplomacy when you had to pretend the worm-eating liars didn’t want to kill you, and a karking nightmare on the battlefield. Now here he was kitting Obi-Wan out in blue._ _

__He left the greave and moved on to the next locker. Standard infantry armor would be better camouflage for Obi-Wan. The scout armor most of the 212th favored wasn’t really used in the 501st, and Rex had distributed most of it to Cody and his men; Katarn would be too heavy. Obi-Wan had the shoulders for it, but not the mass; he could stand punishment better than anyone Cody knew, but he was built more for speed and quick strikes than heavy pounding._ _

__Cody cleared his throat._ _

__He shut the locker containing the heavy armor, and the one with the 212th’s castoffs. It looked like the locker on the left held the most complete replacement plates. Taking a karking armorer’s press onboard would’ve broken the _Arrow’s_ cover, but stang, it would have been handy. He took out a helmet with five-pointed blue stars at the temple and a green triangle point down between the lenses. This could work; he could see Obi-Wan in demolitions. He set the helmet down on the bench next to Obi-Wan’s pack. The back of his throat tightened._ _

__He sat down. He didn’t want to do this. He’d—it hadn’t been as if he’d had a karking plan, but he didn’t know what to say. Cody adjusted his helmet again, and rubbed his fingers against the tight collar of his bodyglove. He didn’t want to be alone with Obi-Wan, and see all that awkward fierce warmth that Obi-Wan showed to so few people turned into cold Jedi propriety. Or worse, that gracious smile and smirking commentary the rest of the Galaxy lapped up like blue milk._ _

__Cody braced both hands on his knees and stared into the armor locker. They’d been in every kind of karking trouble together; they’d lost men and ships, and fought back to back on so many planets he’d need a star chart to map them all. They’d been— He flexed his grip on his knees. Their whole situation had had to be kept so quiet, so personal. So few people had known about them, much less approved, and now Order 66 had torched what little they’d managed to build for themselves. He pressed his lips together and remember Obi-Wan shaking the first time they’d kissed._ _

__A stuttering pressure briefly touched his mind, like a fast brush across the back of his hand. He sucked in air. The door opened just as Cody stood up, and Obi-Wan walked inside the armory. The door hissed closed._ _

__He stood with his hands open at his sides, his lightsaber clipped to his brown leather belt. His hair was falling into his face again, thick auburn strands dangling in front of his eyes. Obi-Wan reached up and brushed them back off his forehead. He didn’t look like he had any bruising on his face; had he hit the water on his back? His blue-grey eyes had bags underneath them, and the tip of his nose was red._ _

__Lines creased the corners of Obi-Wan’s eyes. He moved forward soundlessly and stopped at the end of the bench. Cody saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. He found himself counting the breaths Obi-Wan took, watching the rise and fall of his chest. He kept his head still. He didn’t know what to say._ _

__Obi-Wan twisted his fingers into the end of his left sleeve, and Cody noticed that his knuckles were bruised. The right panel of his tabard was puffed out from his waist, and Cody’s hands were already rising to tug it flat before he caught himself. He dropped them back to his sides._ _

__“Did you check out all right?” Cody asked, pushing his voice out of his raw throat._ _

__He tucked his hands behind his body. Obi-Wan stood with his shoulders high and close against his neck; he put all his stress there. His back was sensitive, Cody had— If this had been any other day, if this had been last karking _week_ , he could have checked for himself. He could have stripped Obi-Wan down to nothing but his skin and rubbed even the smallest knot loose. _ _

__“Oh, yes,” Obi-Wan said, and smiled slightly. “Rivet was unsurprisingly thorough after being nearly sliced in half. Nothing but bumps, bandaging, and slight bruising, I assure you. He even gave me a shot of something in case my earlier swim gave me an infection.”_ _

__His earlier swim. Cody’s stomach sank, and he shut the locker door hanging between them. Obi-Wan rubbed a tight circle over the left side of his upper chest. Cody frowned, and tilted his head to the left. Obi-Wan shook his head. He was too pale. Cody gripped his hands together behind his back._ _

__“You’re honestly going to try to tell me you got off with a karking bruise after I—” Cody closed his eyes. “After I ordered you blasted off that cliff face?”_ _

__He ground his teeth and tried to find that flash shield in his mind again, but it wouldn’t come up. All he could picture was how small Obi-Wan had looked in freefall. He heard a soft footstep; it had to be deliberate, since the second one never followed. He opened his eyes. Obi-Wan looked back at him, close enough that if Cody had reached out, he could have touched his cheek._ _

__“I may not be Rivet or Healer Tan’Oshi, but I am able to heal myself,” Obi-Wan said._ _

__“But you never karking do,” Cody answered. His heart rate sped up. “If I had a cho-marr for every time I had to—”_ _

__He cut himself off and shrugged. If he let himself pretend, it could be any normal post-battle talk, him trying to get Obi-Wan to pay attention to his body, and Obi-Wan denying it was necessary. Once, they’d even done it in the back of a Laartie while Obi-Wan tried to heal the gash under Hook’s eye and hold his own tibia in place. But today wasn’t normal, was it, no matter how hard Cody wanted it to be._ _

__“Forgive the presumption,” Obi-Wan said. He rubbed the back of his neck and sighed, and his chin dipped down to his chest. “Would you please remove your helmet?”_ _

__Cody’s throat clicked. Obi-Wan raised his head to meet his eyes, staring like he could see straight through the lenses of Cody’s helmet. He swayed a little, and Cody wanted to steady him. He had a good two inches on him, but just then Obi-Wan seemed to loom. He opened his mouth and closed it, and then nodded once._ _

__Obi-Wan held out his right hand. Cody reached up and took hold of his helmet. He bent his head and tugged, detaching the seal, and pulled his helmet off. The air felt cold against his scalp. He clenched his jaw, and placed his helmet in Obi-Wan’s hand._ _

__A quiet bruised noise broke through the air between them and made him look up. Obi-Wan had tensed up; his eyes were wide open as they flicked up and down his face._ _

__“I’m so sorry,” he said._ _

__Cody tried to talk and laugh at the same time, and wound up choking. Obi-Wan tucked the helmet against his stomach._ _

__“ _You’re_ sorry?” Cody asked. “ _You’re_ —”_ _

__“If I hadn’t accepted the Kaminoans’ explanations for Tup’s death,” Obi-Wan interrupted. “If I’d just not allowed myself to get distracted and got the Council to _think_ —”_ _

__“You tried that on troop deployment rotations, and remember where that got you?”_ _

__“This is a little more important!” Obi-Wan snapped, and immediately closed his eyes. His shoulders slumped. “That was not the point I was attempting to make, my—” He cut off abruptly. “Our circumstances are not your fault, Cody.”_ _

__“May I come closer?” Obi-Wan asked. “Please, my dear.”_ _

__Obi-Wan reached his left arm out between them, and his tan sleeve fell back far enough that Cody saw the water-damaged green Ottegan silk wrapped around his wrist, braided flat, running along the lines of his veins It disappeared beneath the sleeve, but Cody knew it ended just before Obi-Wan’s inner elbow. That’s where he’d tied the knot to keep the wrap in place before the battle, just as he did most mornings. He jerked his arm out from behind his back and grabbed Obi-Wan by the wrist._ _

__“You kept it,” Cody said._ _

__He tightened his grip. Obi-Wan’s fingers curled in the air between them. Cody saw the irregular purple bruises circling every knuckle on his hand._ _

__“I wasn’t aware I could take it off,” Obi-Wan said._ _

__Obi-Wan pressed his lips together and matched Cody’s stare._ _

__“You have to know,” Cody began. He stopped to clear his throat, and took a deep breath in through his nose. His stomach clenched and a hot pressure built behind his eyes. He wanted to be closer, wanted to pin Obi-Wan to the deck beneath his weight and feel his body heat seep into his own skin, but he couldn’t. There could be Sith osik in his head. The Supreme Chancellor himself had contacted him—Cody would have known that voice anywhere, like spiders crawling up his spine. His chest hurt._ _

__“I’m sorry,” Cody gasped. He pressed the base of his right palm underneath his eye. “Oh Force take it, I’m sorry, Ob’ika.”_ _

__Cody shuddered and yanked Obi-Wan forward; they crashed together with Obi-Wan’s left arm between them. Obi-Wan wrapped his right arm around Cody’s back and over his shoulder. Cody ducked his nose into Obi-Wan’s neck; he smelled like fancy soap and bacta. He grabbed a fistful of Obi-Wan’s tunics and pressed him closer._ _

__Obi-Wan’s right hand curled around the back of Cody’s head, warm enough to burn. “This is not your _fault_ ,” he whispered against Cody’s skin. “I swear by the Living Force, it isn’t.”_ _

__Cody shook his head. “I should have believed,” he said, and tightened his grip on Obi-Wan’s tunics until they pulled out of his belt. “I should have taken the damn thing out just in case.”_ _

__Obi-Wan paused, and then pressed his lips to the corner of Cody’s head and again to his ear. He leaned back far enough to look him in the eye. “Is that what you told Twenty-Three?”_ _

__Cody flinched. “You’ve seen Twenty-Three?”_ _

__Obi-Wan nodded. “He wanted to give me Athonjo’s cloak. I told him he should keep it; their friendship was important to hir.”_ _

__Cody held him closer, and Obi-Wan took a deep breath. “Do you blame me?”_ _

__“No, of course not.”_ _

__“Then from your point of view absolutely no one is at fault except yourself?” Obi-Wan’s hand slid from Cody’s scalp to cup the side of his face, and stroked his thumb along the bottom edge of his scar. “My dear, I thought we’d decided I was in charge of taking on the galaxy’s burdens.”_ _

__Cody snorted. Up close, he could see the strain in Obi-Wan’s close-mouthed grin; he felt the fine tremor in his muscles. He brought Obi-Wan’s left hand up to his mouth and pressed his lips to the most bruised knuckle. He tried to keep it gentle, but he heard Obi-Wan’s breath catch._ _

__“It’s not the same,” he muttered._ _

__“It is the same,” Obi-Wan said. He cleared his throat. “When I fell, I thought that I was done for, and when I escaped—” he paused, and Cody knew there was something more there, that he should pay attention, but Obi-Wan was in his grasp and he could feel his breath against his skin. “—When I made it off Utapau, the Force was in an uproar and with every moment it grew louder and more fierce, and I thought—I thought there had been a coup, that the army was revolting, and—I—”_ _

__Cody tensed, and Obi-Wan shook his head and smiled. “But you’re here,” he continued. “And now we know the truth. Now we can—we’ll fix this, Cody. We’ll stop the Chancellor, and we’ll fix it.”_ _

__Cody nodded. “We’ll fix it,” he repeated._ _

__“Yes,” Obi-Wan said._ _

__Cody swallowed carefully. “I need you to do something for me,” he said._ _

__“Of course,” Obi-Wan said._ _

__“I need you to…check,” Cody said._ _

__“Cody, I…”_ _

__“I need to know there aren’t any more surprise triggers in my mind.”_ _

__He’d seen the Jedi look into the minds of prisoners with important information, and Cody was used to the touch of Obi-Wan’s mind against his own. After a battle, Obi-Wan’s sense of the Force was usually so karking raw he had to pull back into himself just to function, but they’d figured out that if he concentrated on one other person, it helped with his downswings. He bounced back faster if he spent time…resting or whatever, in Cody’s head. Well, he called it his sense of Cody in the Force, but Obi-Wan liked his karking euphemisms. He’d never gone deeper than that surface connection, though._ _

__Obi-Wan nodded. “It will feel strange.”_ _

__He held Cody’s head steady with that one hand still wrapped around the base of his skull. Obi-Wan stared at him, and Cody felt Obi-Wan’s focus spread. His face smoothed, and then a wave of pressure rolled inward from the center of Cody’s forehead. He shook and Obi-Wan narrowed his eyes. The undertow caught them both and Cody tumbled. Heat seared through him. The scar on his head throbbed with cold. He smelled mud and dirt, tasted salt water in his mouth, and the _Vigilance_ needed to pass inspection before Kahdah came, he’d take the bolts out of the hull himself before he’d let that karking birthborn touch the men, _Jedi filth_ , kaysh chaku Obi-Wan’akaata. Warmth spiraled through the pads of Obi-Wan’s fingers as he traced the swoops of Cody’s scar; he’d been on Nar Hederon when the blast hit and _he’d_ made it, but Chaser hadn’t and his pauldron had made such a nasty wound they’d said he’d lose the eye, but Obi-Wan was standing next to him; he hadn’t been there but they were gone and it was colder, the nightmares were always cold and empty he’d done his duty all the lists had names he knew _good soldiers follow—_ he felt hands over his heart, and tucked Obi-Wan safe in the corner where the nightmares never came and it was just Obi-Wan and Cody in Cody and Rex’s tent because Alpha never went in there and it was safe and quiet and Obi-Wan would never be found because he kept all his good things there where the air felt like a blanket, soft from use, and it smelled like his batch and they were inside, it felt like Obi-Wan when he was tired but everyone was screaming, everyone was screaming, it was too much, the Varactyl must’ve hit the water first or he’d be dead thank the Force for being human-sized here, here, Cody was here across from him at the conference table, and all he had to do was focus on Cody, just them together, as close as they should be and—_ _

__Cody’s epaulets detached with two loud clicks and fell to the deck with twin thunks. Cody gasped, mouth open wide, and opened his eyes wide. Obi-Wan was panting. He stared at Cody and then looked down at the bits of his uniform lying on the floor._ _

__“I…” Obi-Wan said. Cody pressed his gauntleted knuckles deeper alongside his spine. Obi-Wan groaned softly, just a breath with a tiny noise attached, and arched. His head tilted back and Cody bent his own head downward._ _

__“I am not usually so sloppy, my dear,” Obi-Wan said._ _

__Cody shivered; tiny corkscrews of energy sang through his body, winding their way into his blood. His bodyglove itched against his skin, too close for comfort. Obi-Wan uncurled the first two fingers of his left palm and touched Cody’s chin._ _

__“Did you find anything?” Cody asked._ _

__Obi-Wan shook his head, moving barely a fraction of an inch to the left and right. Their eyes met. “Of course I didn’t.”_ _

__Cody swallowed; he licked his lips and Obi-Wan’s eyes snapped down to Cody’s mouth. Obi-Wan’s right hand dropped to his shoulder and gripped his cuirass strap; he could feel Obi-Wan’s fingers through the bodyglove. Cody turned his head._ _

__Obi-Wan’s eyes were wide. He licked his lips, and Cody felt his own mouth curl upward. Obi-Wan smiled back, too pale and too tense, but alive and strong; the karking best Jedi in the GAR. Cody brought Obi-Wan’s left arm higher between them. He kissed the back of Obi-Wan’s hand, brushing his parted lips over each swollen knuckle. Obi-Wan’s breath sped up as Cody turned his hand and kissed his palm. He felt the weight of Obi-Wan’s body against his armor and opened his legs to brace him as Cody mouthed down the green silk armwrap, following the braid and nuzzling past Obi-Wan’s sleeve until he reached the end. He bit the knot there and tugged on it between his teeth. Obi-Wan sucked in a breath._ _

__Pressure built against his armor and then inside of it, impossible hands drifting across his skin and pressing against his stiffening cock. Cody looked up. He let go of the knot, and Obi-Wan shivered. The hands disappeared._ _

__Cody tucked his arm back around Obi-Wan’s waist. He hooked both thumbs into the back of Obi-Wan’s belt and dragged it down a little so that it would bite into Obi-Wan’s stomach. Obi-Wan’s hips hitched against his codpiece._ _

__“You swear to me you’re all right,” Cody said, voice low in his throat._ _

__Obi-Wan shivered. “Yes.”_ _

__Cody pushed further down on the back of Obi-Wan’s belt; Obi-Wan’s hips bucked. Cody clenched his hands in the leather. He dragged his gauntleted knuckles up along either side of Obi-Wan’s spine until he reached the points of his shoulder blades. Obi-Wan groaned; his head dropped back and Cody covered his mouth with his own. He slid his tongue past Obi-Wan’s teeth and dragged the tip along the ridges at the top of his mouth. Obi-Wan’s arms clenched around his back; he sucked on Cody’s tongue and whimpered when Cody pulled back to kiss his lower lip. Obi-Wan’s beard rubbed against his cheek as he tilted their heads together, gently biting Cody’s upper lip._ _

__Cody spread his hands and pulled his fingertips down Obi-Wan’s back and sides to the front of his belt and unsnapped the metal buckle. He felt Obi-Wan shiver when it dropped to the deck at their feet. The tabards tangled in Cody’s hands; he tugged on them, and pressed his forehead to Obi-Wan’s._ _

__“I couldn’t touch the Force without hearing them crying out, any of them—all of them,” Obi-Wan said, lowering his voice as if they weren’t alone in the armory. His voice hitched. “I felt your mind burning as I left orbit.”_ _

__Out of the corner of his eye, Cody saw Obi-Wan’s eyelashes flutter, and he felt the stutter of Obi-Wan’s breath on his own mouth, picking up too much speed. Cody’s stomach clenched. Force take the Chancellor. Force blast him to _ions_._ _

__“Better now?” Cody asked, as quietly as Obi-Wan._ _

__Obi-Wan’s lips quirked. He nodded and their foreheads broke apart. “Better now,” he whispered back. He stroked the back of Cody’s bare head._ _

__“Come on, then, Obi’ika,” Cody said. “Back you go.”_ _

__The air grew hot, and then there was Obi-Wan, the sense of him only just at the edge of Cody’s mind. Cody waited, breathing deeply. He could feel the tension in Obi-Wan’s frame, and this at least he could do something about. He tugged on Obi-Wan’s tabards again, a little harder to get his attention, and breathed out. Obi-Wan sighed, and Cody had to kiss him. The pressure on his mind increased; Cody felt it like a palm on the center of his chest, right where Obi-Wan liked to fall asleep. He dragged Obi-Wan’s tabards off by the back and let them fall._ _

__They kissed as the air grew hotter around them. Obi-Wan loved to kiss, would beg for it with his body until Cody made him use his clever words, and he was good at it. Cody had lost hours to Obi-Wan’s mouth. His tongue slid along Cody’s and back into his own mouth, coaxing Cody deeper. Obi-Wan’s leg wrapped around Cody’s calf, trying for leverage to thrust, and slipped down. Obi-Wan groaned, breaking the seal of their lips, and Cody bit the curve of his jaw. Obi-Wan shuddered, hands scrabbling for purchase on Cody’s armor, catching on the straps holding it in place, but never opening them, not without permission. Cody licked down the line of his carotid. Force bless his bones, he tasted good. Cody sucked through his high brown inner collar._ _

__Obi-Wan leaned backwards, and Cody followed. He felt the fall and stop of Obi-Wan using the Force to keep from overbalancing, and pushed forward with all his weight. His armor was heavy and unforgiving, and Obi-Wan kept rubbing himself against it, kissing the side of Cody’s head. He gently cupped the bacta bandage over Cody’s surgical scar. They fell backwards onto the deck, and Cody dropped, the Force releasing him an inch above the floor and forcing his weight against the full length of Obi-Wan’s body._ _

__Obi-Wan moaned and tilted his head back. He loved being covered, almost trapped, feeling like the only thing keeping him in place was Cody, but knowing that he could still break free at any time. They both knew it; the Force was always with Obi-Wan._ _

__“Karking sneaky,” Cody muttered, and grinned. Obi-Wan raised his eyebrows and breathed out a chuckle. Cody wrapped his hand around the back of Obi-Wan’s neck and squeezed. Obi-Wan shuddered and thrust against his armor; his eyelids slipped closed. Cody felt his cock twitch and lengthen until his codpiece felt cramped. He tightened his grip and matched their breathing. His cheeks prickled where Obi-Wan’s beard had rubbed._ _

__He went onto all fours above Obi-Wan, and grunted when Obi-Wan immediately wrapped his legs around his waist to keep contact. His blue-grey eyes popped open, mouth already frowning, and Cody kissed him until Obi-Wan’s grip loosened. His arms fell to the deck above his head, just as they were supposed to; he was always so good. Back home, Obi-Wan’s hands would already be gripping the sides of their headboard, bracing himself._ _

__Cody swallowed as he raised his head, kissing Obi-Wan more lightly each time until their lips parted. His cock throbbed in his codpiece, slicking the inside of his bodyglove. He wanted to bear down on his knees, and thrust against Obi-Wan’s ass, but stopped himself. Blast his karking armor. He reached up with his right hand and unsnapped the shoulder straps of his cuirass; the two halves parted and slid down. The back piece clattered to floor, but the front fell onto Obi-Wan’s chest before Cody set it to the side. Obi-Wan tightened his legs again. Cody wanted days to make up for the kriffing time they’d already lost, time when Obi-Wan had thought he’d been betrayed and Cody knew he couldn’t stop himself from attacking him. The days when Obi-Wan would have had to kill him, and Cody wouldn’t have minded._ _

__The air went sharp and chill, and the pressure of Obi-Wan in his mind shrank. His legs fell, splayed out, to the deck. Cody leaned down and let part of his weight rest along Obi-Wan’s torso. He pressed their hands together._ _

__“I could never do that, Cody,” Obi-Wan said._ _

__Cody closed his eyes and breathed out along the side of Obi-Wan’s neck. “Don’t have to find out now, do we?”_ _

__He felt Obi-Wan shiver; the pressure came back. Cody kissed the tip of his ear, nuzzled down and bit the lobe; Obi-Wan breathed out. Cody rose up again, letting go of Obi-Wan’s hands. He turned his head and saw that Obi-Wan’s pack had fallen to the floor. Well, so had everything else. They must have knocked into the bench at some point._ _

__“Your clothes are still on,” Cody said, and slid his fingertips under Obi-Wan’s collar. The inner brown tunic was made of softer material than the outer clothes; Obi-Wan’s skin felt hot and damp. He turned back to Obi-Wan. “You remember Saleucami? You want that?”_ _

__Obi-Wan moaned. His body twisted, and his hands opened and closed above his head. Cody’s breath caught in his chest. He was so beautiful, and Cody wanted to drag his mouth over every inch of Obi-Wan’s skin. He wanted to keep him in this armory forever, beneath his body, where Obi-Wan was safe._ _

__“I want…” Obi-Wan’s throat clicked when he swallowed. Cody kissed his Adam’s apple. Obi-Wan was a Jedi, so he wasn’t supposed to want things, but his cock got so hard when Cody made him ask. Cody reached between them and cupped Obi-Wan’s cock, where it was trapped against his inner thigh. Cody rubbed his palm up the stiff length._ _

__“I want...Cody, please,” Obi-Wan said, panting, and Cody kissed his bearded cheek and then the bags under each eye. “Please, let me be naked, I…”_ _

__Cody pressed their mouths together, smothering Obi-Wan’s words until Obi-Wan arched his torso to reach him. He’d coaxed Obi-Wan to explicitness sometimes, made him lose his pretty Jedi vocabulary and swear like he did in the middle of a battlefield, but he couldn’t today, not now. Every second that passed they were that much closer to Coruscant. They were both too tense, riding the bitter edge of battle and escape. Cody wanted everything he could get while there was still the chance they could have it._ _

__He sat up and scooted back on his knees. The bunched loose fabric Obi-Wan wore beneath his belt had twisted between them, and the end he usually tucked beneath the wrap poked out on his belly. Cody picked up the bit of unhemmed fabric, and pulled it towards him; the band tightened._ _

__“Lift up for me,” he said._ _

__Obi-Wan arched his back, resting his weight on his hips and shoulders. His mouth opened, and he licked his lips. Cody dropped the fabric and let it fall to the side. He slid both hands up Obi-Wan’s hips and underneath the band. He loosened it with his fingers, pulling and pressing down through Obi-Wan’s clothes; his thumbs brushed the bulge of Obi-Wan’s cock as he worked. Obi-Wan threw his head back, but kept perfectly still. Cody felt the pressure in his mind shiver, a coil of energy he could only just see._ _

__The hem of Obi-Wan’s chest covering flipped up his stomach. Cody paused and glanced up. Obi-Wan’s fingers were curled in the air. He twitched them and his shirt inched higher. An invisible hand settled on Cody’s hip. Cody leaned down and stretched his hands away from Obi-wan’s body, unwrapping the loose tan fabric, and kissed Obi-Wan’s belly._ _

__“Not yet,” he muttered, and the hand on his hip evaporated._ _

__He wanted to see Obi-Wan spread out in front of him, just to make sure there wasn’t anything but bruising and scrapes. Just as a precaution. He folded back Obi-Wan’s tan overtunic and undid the knotted cord holding the panels together, and then the diagonal line of smaller knots holding his inner tunic in place. Cody hooked his fingers underneath the soft brown fabric and pulled the clothes away, and Obi-Wan’s bare stomach flexed._ _

__Cody took a deep breath. All the same scars were there, and Obi-Wan’s weird reddish chest hair, and the points of his nipples. He had a long bandage on his side, and a spray of dark purple bruises on his ribs. Cody leaned down and pressed his face to the center of Obi-Wan’s chest. He kissed a bruise, and licked the center of it, feeling the hot swollen skin beneath his tongue; Obi-Wan gasped. Cody got his hands on the deck and heaved himself back. He stood and stared down at Obi-Wan where he lay panting, splayed out on the floor, tunics trapping his arms to his sides, and his cock bulging against the loose weave of his beige pants. Karking hell, Cody needed out of his armor._ _

__Cody reached down with both hands and pulled his chest covering over his head. He tossed it to the side. Obi-Wan sat up, leaning back on both hands. Cody heard clicks and snaps, one after the other, and felt his codpiece loosen on his hips. He groaned as the pressure disappeared from his cock, and heard his plates thud and clatter around them. He grinned, and Obi-Wan flushed. He felt the codpiece detach and saw it float away. He undid the snaps to his gauntlets as Obi-Wan dealt with his thigh guards, and then his greaves. His boot seals released and he bent to yank his feet free. He knelt on the ground, grabbed for Obi-Wan’s pack with his left hand, and looked up past the open vee of Obi-Wan’s legs._ _

__Obi-Wan shrugged out of his tunics just as Cody lunged forward. He took them both down to the ground; the pack fell from his hand and Cody felt boxes poke him in the thigh. They slid together, shuddering as they rocked closer; Obi-Wan’s hands pulled at his back, hooking around his shoulder blades. He kissed the side of Cody’s head, and the bacta bandage crackled against Cody’s skin. Obi-Wan dragged his mouth down Cody’s temple to his cheek, and then to the corner of his lips. He whimpered and the heat of his skin made Cody’s entire body flush with sweat. His heart pounded; he thrust forward and moaned._ _

__Obi-Wan squirmed beneath him, and Cody gripped the front of his trousers, palming his cock through the fabric. He wanted skin. He undid the buttons hidden beneath the waistband, so roughly that he heard threads snap. He pushed Obi-Wan’s pants and underwear down his hips to his thighs. Obi-Wan’s cock lay curved against his heaving belly, the wet pink head peeking out from the foreskin, already drooling into the line of hair leading to his navel._ _

__Cody curled his hand around the shaft of Obi-Wan’s cock and pressed his thumb against the tip. Obi-Wan panted, his hips twitching upwards. His hands dug into Cody’s shoulders. He was red all over now, flushed and sweaty, his hair stuck to his forehead. His lips were shining and wet, and Cody wanted to feel his tongue on his cock._ _

__“Please, please,” Obi-Wan said, raising his chin to the ceiling. The welt was gone from his neck. Cody pumped his hand, drawing his fingertips down the big vein on the underside of Obi-Wan’s cock, and Obi-Wan tried to open his legs further, but they caught in his trousers. He kicked a leg out to loosen them. They slipped down, closer to his left knee, and Cody leaned back. He dragged Obi-Wan's boots off, the left and then the right, and pulled down his socks. He kissed the bridge of Obi-Wan's left foot, cupping his heel in his hands, and then placed his foot on the floor. He reached out and gripped Obi-Wan's loose waistband, and watched Obi-Wan shiver as he slid the pants off and tossed them aside._ _

__Cody reached into his own leggings and pulled out his cock. He held Obi-Wan’s dick against his stomach with his other hand, palming the entire thick length to hold it in place. He jacked himself, staring up into Obi-Wan’s face, watching Obi-Wan look at him, the way his eyes widened and turned dark, the way his tongue darted out and licked his lips in an endless loop. Cody shivered and thrust into his own grip._ _

__He felt Obi-Wan’s presence tighten at the edge of his mind, the focus narrowed. For a second, he saw himself, sweat at his temples and tongue caught between his teeth, the intensity of his own stare. He saw the row of coordinates he had tattooed over his heart, and wanted to be _closer_ to himself. Cody shook his head and the feeling disappeared._ _

__“Shh, shh,” he said. He rubbed his palm in a circle over Obi-Wan’s cock, massaging his foreskin, and let his fingertips graze the head, dipping into the pre-come leaking over Obi-Wan’s belly._ _

__Obi-Wan exhaled, a high note caught in the back of his throat, and shuddered. His knees wavered in the air, first down and then back up again. He stared down his body at Cody’s hand and his arms tensed. Cody gripped himself more tightly, and stroked harder. He gasped, and felt his stomach turn over. Obi-Wan bucked against his hand, and Cody dragged his hand down Obi-Wan’s cock to his balls; he rolled them between his fingers, and tugged them down as they tried to tighten. Obi-Wan dropped down to the floor; his legs closed, trapping Cody’s wrist between his thighs, and then shook open again._ _

__Cody walked closer on his knees. He let go of his own cock, shuddering, and placed his free hand on Obi-Wan’s knee. He bent it towards the floor, stretching Obi-Wan’s left thigh outward. Obi-Wan’s hands were clenching and unclenched just above his cock, digging red lines into his stomach, but not touching. Cody bent his head, and blew across the tip of Obi-Wan’s cock._ _

__Obi-Wan cried out, and his cock leaked a fresh dribble of pre-come; he could get so wet. Cody kissed the tip of his dick and licked across the tiny hole. He tasted bitter salt and swallowed anyway. Shaking fingertips brushed against his scalp. He licked beneath Obi-Wan’s foreskin and suckled the head of his cock, pushing his mouth down the shaft. He glanced up and Obi-Wan was chewing his lower lip, wide-eyed._ _

__He opened his mouth and let Obi-Wan’s cock slip free. Obi-Wan moaned and twisted, stomach bumping up against Cody’s chin; his hands trembled against Cody’s face, cupping the sides. Cody lifted up onto his hands and toes, braced above him like he was about to do a push up. He stared down and kissed Obi-Wan’s cheek._ _

__“Take my leggings off,” he said against his skin, and Obi-Wan shuddered. “Come on, beautiful. I know you can get it together.”_ _

__He felt his cock fall down into the space between Obi-Wan’s hip and thigh and brush warm skin. Cody felt heat all along his front. The air smelled of Obi-Wan, and he could taste him in his mouth. He smiled. Obi-Wan stared up at him. Cody felt his leggings slide further down his hips, and he kissed Obi-Wan, slipping his tongue between his lips for a second before he pulled back. Obi-Wan’s eyelids lowered; he breathed through his mouth._ _

__Cody felt the weight of hands pushing his leggings further down, and bent his head again. He kissed Obi-Wan’s upper lip and then his lower one, sucking it between his teeth. Obi-Wan groaned, and Cody felt that focus narrow again. No screaming in here, no one burning, just Obi-Wan doing what he was told, because he was always so wonderfully good. Cody’s leggings slipped to his knees, and he pushed his tongue into Obi-Wan’s mouth, letting him suck. He moaned as the leggings fell to his ankles. He toed them off the rest of the way, and those invisible hands caressed the backs of his thighs. They squeezed his ass, and he laughed into their kiss._ _

__“Good job,” Cody said, and kissed the heat in both of Obi-Wan’s cheeks._ _

__Obi-Wan rolled his eyes, and turned his head, but Cody followed. He licked the side of Obi-Wan’s neck, and lowered himself down to rest full out against Obi-Wan’s body. Obi-Wan stiffened and abruptly relaxed. His eyes closed as Cody began to rock._ _

__“I could fuck you,” he said, and Obi-Wan shuddered. “I brought your things from the ship. I could do it right here.”_ _

__Obi-Wan’s legs were trapped, splayed in a vee around Cody’s thighs. His cock was leaking between them; Cody rubbed his own dick into crease of Obi-Wan’s thigh and felt his balls tighten. He bit the ball of Obi-Wan’s shoulder and thrust hard, feeling Obi-Wan’s muscles tense and give beneath him. He tangled his hand into Obi-Wan’s hair and dragged his mouth up to his temple._ _

__“I thought you were dead,” he said into Obi-Wan’s skin, and thrust down against him. “I thought you were dead.”_ _

__Obi-Wan’s arms came up around his body and held him close. They slid against each other, rough and too heavy, and Cody didn’t care. He wanted to impress the feel of Obi-Wan’s skin into his until he never forgot the bunching of Obi-Wan’s muscles, until the heat of his body and the presence in his mind could never be overwritten. Obi-Wan belonged with him, and his place was at Obi-Wan’s side, and nothing would break them apart. His cock stiffened as Obi-Wan’s grip tightened on his back; Cody scrabbled between them, and brought their cocks together._ _

__He hissed at the feeling of Obi-Wan’s foreskin rubbing against his own cock, and twisted his hand up and down both of their shafts. Obi-Wan panted against the side of his head, whining under his breath and shivering. Cody pumped, thrusting into his own grip, holding Obi-Wan steady as he grew hotter and heavier in Cody’s hand. Obi-Wan’s hips shuddered and pushed upwards. He yelled and all the doors in the armory popped open with a scream of metal. His cock jumped in Cody’s hand and Cody felt the pulse of hot liquid spill over his fingers._ _

__He let go and dropped his weight completely, smearing Obi-Wan’s come between their bellies as he thrust into the mess. Obi-Wan held him tightly, kissing his shoulder and even his biceps, mouthing over his skin blindly._ _

__Cody’s stomach twisted and tightened. He crawled up Obi-Wan’s body by his hands, and got a leg over Obi-Wan’s hip for balance. He knelt up, and put his hand against the side of Obi-Wan’s head. His thumb opened Obi-Wan’s soft mouth, and hands on his lower back pushed his wet cock past Obi-Wan’s lips._ _

__He groaned, balanced on his knees and curled above Obi-Wan’s head. He pumped his hips carefully, and cupped the back of Obi-Wan’s head to keep it off the floor. Obi-Wan stared up at him. The pressure in Cody’s mind felt like a wave of heat, like standing in the sun. Obi-Wan sucked him deeper, soft lips and gentle tongue, drawing him closer with every careful thrust. Cody bent his head, watching the last inch of his cock disappear into Obi-Wan’s mouth. Tears had gathered at the corners of Obi-Wan’s eyes. He touched his fingertips to Obi-Wan’s cheek, ruffling his beard along the line of his own cock. Obi-Wan swallowed once, and then again, over and over until Cody felt his blood rush to every corner of his body and then funnel straight to his cock. Obi-Wan’s mouth tightened, sucking him as Cody came in a cascading shudder of heat._ _

__Obi-Wan held him in his mouth until he softened, and then kissed Cody’s inner thigh, clumsy and wet. Cody moved down and covered him with his body, pressing him into the remains of hisclothes. He felt Obi-Wan idly kicking at where his pant and boots still trapped him, and kissed the base of his neck, in the space between his collarbones. Obi-Wan shivered and Cody gathered him up against his chest, rolling onto his back. He ran his hand down Obi-Wan’s spine and sighed at the feeling of Obi-Wan’s lips against the tattoo over his heart._ _

__Cody stared around the mess they’d made of the armory. His armor was strewn around the room, and all the locker doors were open. Somehow his leggings were hanging from a gun rack. He rubbed a slow circle on Obi-Wan’s back. They needed to get up. He tightened his grip and Obi-Wan settled more heavily against him. His head pushed into the center of Cody’s chest and he felt quieter in Cody’s mind. Cody sighed and ran his hand through Obi-Wan’s hair. He felt Obi-Wan smile. They could lie here just a little longer._ _

__

__***_ _

__

__Commander Tano stood by Del, who’d recovered enough to take the helm again. Outside the viewport, Cody watched the _Tantive III_ disappear into a hyperspace tunnel. He glanced at Rex, and leaned closer._ _

__“The _Tantive IV_?” he asked under his breath._ _

__“I guess all Alderaanians aren’t that creative,” Rex said, and shrugged. “It should get us there, anyway. The Senator’s been called to some emergency meeting. Might mean security will be looser by the time we pull into the Temple.”_ _

__Cody looked across the bridge to where Obi-Wan stood by Eighty-One, listening as Boil explained, again, how Juri was absolutely not Krallathyyyr, and at no point had anything anyone had done had resembled half of the osik that had gone on in _Squad Theta from Vistathonne_. Obi-Wan nodded thoughtfully, and tucked his helmet more firmly against his hip. He rested his other hand on his blue kama. The armor fit him well; Cody had tested every plate._ _

__Rex knocked his elbow into Cody’s side. Cody jumped and glared at him._ _

__“Stop staring,” Rex muttered. He rolled his eyes and smirked. “You look like a shiny.”_ _

__Cody snorted. “You look like a shiny,” he said, and poked him in the chest with his helmet._ _

__“There’s that brilliant wit.”_ _

__Cody looked over the bridge. The men were crowded near where the Jedi stood, for the most part, unless they had to stand their posts. They parted like water when Obi-Wan went to speak to Tano. The Jedi bent their heads together. Cody leaned back against the wall and sighed. Rex glanced at him, eyebrows raised. Cody poked him again._ _

__“Hey,” he said. “We’re going to find him.”_ _

__Rex leaned on the wall next to him. “You think so?”_ _

__Del angled the ship for hyperspace, and Cody went to take his seat behind Zeer at the guns. “I do,” he said._ _

__They strapped in. Cody glanced at Obi-Wan, catching his eye, as the men settled into the straps set into the walls. Obi-Wan nodded, and Cody nodded back. Rex cleared his throat next to him._ _

__“Are you ready, Del?” Obi-Wan called out, and snapped his last safety strap into place._ _

__“Coordinates are set, General,” Del said._ _

__“Well then,” Obi-Wan said. “The delights of Coruscant it is.”_ _

__The engines rumbled, heating up as the ship angled for hyperspace. Cody planted his feet and kept his eyes on the viewport as they sped up. The tunnel opened, the stars swirled, and the ship jumped._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a
> 
> “Haar’chak, _ibi’tuur_ , gar or'dinii!:” Damn it, today, you fool!
> 
> “Gar serim: That’s it
> 
>  _Coruscanta a'den mhi, Vode an._ : We, the Wrath of Coruscant, siblings all. _A lyric from “Vode An,” a song repurposed from its original form and status in Mandalorian culture to reflect the shift in cultural loyalties within the Kaminoan clones (as per wookiepedia)._
> 
> Kaysh chaku Obi-Wan’akaata: He’s stealing Obi-Wan’s battalion

**Author's Note:**

> As of right now, there's nothing in text that I believe warrants a warning, but that will change in the future, and it will be indicated in the tags. Thanks!


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